JMEN12 - I Sem - Indian Writing in English PDF

 FIRST YEAR – SEMESTER I INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH UNIT I Introduction from K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar and C.D. Narasimaiah UNIT II Rabindranath Tagore – Paper Boat Sarojini Naidu – The Village Song To...

 FIRST YEAR – SEMESTER I INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH UNIT I Introduction from K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar and C.D. Narasimaiah UNIT II Rabindranath Tagore – Paper Boat Sarojini Naidu – The Village Song Toru Dutt – The Lotus AK Ramanujam – Still Another View of Grace R Parthasarathy – River Once UNIT III Mahatma Gandhi – Steal and Atonement Sri Aurobindo – Poetry from “Early Cultural Writings” (Page 123-24) Vivekananda – Address at the Final Session (Complete Works Vol I, Chapter I) UNIT IV Ruskin Bond – The Eyes Are Not Here K.A. Abbas – Sparrows UNIT V RK Narayan – The Man-Eater of Malgudi Text books (Latest Editions) 1. An Introduction to the study of English Literature. W.H. Hudson. Sarojini Naidu-Select Poems. Turunbull, H.G, Dalway, Bombay: Oxford University 2. Press, 1930 R.K. Narayan: The Man-Eater of Malgudi. Library of South Asian Literature – Orient 3. paper backs 2010. Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. New Delhi: 4. Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 20002001.  UNIT – I INTRODUCTION FROM K.R. SRINIVASA IYENGAR AND C.D. NARASIMAIAH K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar Kodungallur Ramaswami Srinivasa Iyengar, Indian writer was born on 17 April 1908 in Sattur, Tamil Nadu, India. After education, he joined the Department of English in the Andhra University. He became the vice-chancellor of the Andhra University on 30 June 1966. Wrote extensively on British, American and Commonwealth Literatures. He has also written on comparative aesthetics and spiritual heritage of India and authored more than 40 books. Received the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 1985. Died in 15 April 1000 in Chennai Srinivasa Iyengar begins the work by expressing gratitude to Professor Norman Jeffares for inviting him to give a lecture on Indo-Anglican Literature. He talks to the students and says that he, too, learned from the lectures on how to write Indian English. He talks about his earlier visit, where he met Professors Dobree and Orton and gave talks at St. Matthew’s Parochial Hall. He thanks them for asking him to give talks in England starting in 1951. He thinks that the Commonwealth states are many and speak the same language, but India is a country with many languages. Literature is seen as the soul of nature, and it brings people together from all over the world. He talks about E. F. Oaten, whose article on Anglo-Indian literature won a prize at Cambridge and was later turned into a book. He gave a critical overview of the writing that English people in India have done on Indian topics. But since then, Professor P. Seshadri and Dr. Bhupal Singh have given talks with both English writers talking about Indian topics and Indian writers talking in English. Also, Mr. George Sampson talked about Indian writing in English. They think of Indian literature as a result of the relationship between Indian and English literature and as a child of Anglo-Indian literature. The word “Anglo-Indian” has a racial meaning, and so do the people who wrote Anglo-Indian writing. In the past, the works of American and African writers were called American literature and African literature, respectively. However, the works of Indian writers were not called Indian literature. Even though Pearl Buck and Louis Bromfield wrote about India, they were still thought of as American authors. Indian literature includes many different types of writing, like Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Sanskrit, and more. According to C.R. Reddy, Indo- 3 Anglican literature is the same as Indian literature because it comes from the Vedas and is still being used by writers like Tagore, Iqbal, and Aurobindo Ghose. Since 1883, the term “Indo- Anglican” has been used to refer to a printed book of “Specimen Compositions from Native Students.” This is also what Iyengar called the title of the first book he wrote for the P. E. N. All-India Center. He said that the argument started because of the use of the words “Indo-Anglian” and “Indo-Anglican.” Indians write in English so they can talk to people outside of India in an Indian way. Indian and English writers have created something that neither English poetry nor regional literatures can match. They have combined Indian poetic experience with English verse expression. Professor N K Sidhanta looked over the book and asked some questions about writing as a subject and as a profession. Sir Edmund Gosse told Sarojini that instead of writing about the robins and skylarks in the midland countries, he should write about the flowers and foods in her home province. Indian English writing has been affected by English Romantics, Victorians, and Modernists writing in a big way. Indo-Anglian literature has also helped people around the world learn to write in English. For example, a piece called England is Abroad says that literature is made in Sydney, Vancouver, and Madras. Indo-Anglian literature grew to be both an Indian language and a type of English writing. This isn’t as good as the local literature, and it’s seen as a copy of something else done by someone with bad creative ideas. People often call this kind of writing “parasitic literature.” But that’s not always the case. For example, Jawaharlal Nehru’s Autobiography is seen as a class by itself. English writers who are good at their jobs praise the work of Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu, and Harin. Some English people think that Indo-English literature isn’t as good as English literature because it’s often mysterious and hard to understand. Then he talks about Sakunthala as an example and what Aurobindo thought about the future of Indian writing. Writing creatively, whether in your own language or a language you’ve learned, shows how committed you really are. He said that Indian writers who were patriotic had changed their writing style to English and were making Indian history and a new literature. With this, English has become the language of the Indians and Indo-English writing has become the literature of the Indians. England and India each have their own style when they write in English, which is a world language. 4  From 1857 to 1900, English education grew quickly and raised many creative Indian geniuses. The next two years saw the growth of English education. Britain gave India its freedom, but the English language stayed strong and has grown a lot since then. Rajaji agreed that English should be the national language. Even though Hindi has been promoted a lot, Khadi has not replaced mill-cloth during the Ghandian Era. The same is true for the English language. People in India have known English for 150 years, and even Rajaji said that English was a gift from Saraswati. He said that there were more English newspapers in circulation than Hindu newspapers, and that in 1957, 193 new English journals were started. Also, English is seen as a national language, and Indo-Anglian literature is seen as a national literature. It is important to preserve local writing. Indian writing in English is seen as unique art. The Indo-Anglian writer was able to learn both prose and verse in English, just like all the other writers. The Sayaji Rao University at Baroda was the first to offer a post-graduate course on Indo-English literature. He says that Jawaharlal Nehru and Radhakrishnan, who were prime minister and vice president at the time, only wrote in English. A very important person in India’s history, C. Rajagopalachari, has written in both Tamil and English. English is used for both prose and poetry in official papers. Iyengar also talked about how many publications colleges had that made English a big deal. The law courts, higher education, training, and conferences all use English as their main language. Because Indians are patriotic, Iyengar thinks that Yeats was wrong when he called them “a stately people clownish, putting indignity into their very souls.” People have understood that the future is not in Hindi, but in English, which is what people in the developing world dream. English was like the Suez Canal for ideas to travel between the West and the East, between England and India. In the West, important Indian minds from the past and the present have been heard. Tagore was the voice of modern Indian thinking for a lot of people. Every day, about 30 English songs were sent to the most important Indian weekly to be published. When the debate over English as the national language of India was at its peak, Iyengar was asked to give a talk on Indo-English literature. According to him, there are some things about Indian life, experience, and speech that are hard to translate into English. He thinks of the literature as new literature and hopes to have a new experimental critical method to properly evaluate the literature that has been made. He wanted people to read this writing with an open mind, not too eager to judge or too eager to skip over what is being said. 5 Critical Analysis Srinivas Iyengar Srinivas Iyengar says, Indian literature is writing that comes from different Indian states like Assam, Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and others, but it is written in English. In 1883, “specimen compositions from native students” in Calcutta were the first to use the word “Indo-Anglican.” Srinivas Iyengar used it in 1943. He told the Indian writers that English has become our language, even though it comes from English people. He tells English people to welcome and respect Indian writers who write in English. He says that Indian writing in English is like Shakuntala, and he asks Indian writers to be polite and accept the writings. Srinivasa Iyengar says that Indian artists who write in English fall into three groups. First, there are those who went to English-speaking schools and colleges. Second, Indians who have moved to other countries but are still involved in shaping the culture and customs of the country where they now live. Finally, there are people who have learned English as a second language. Following independence, more English-language journals began to appear, and more university papers are now published in English as well. He says that Yeats doesn’t like it when people use a strange language. Another Irish person agrees with it and said that letting English people in will also let Hindi people in. He says that English is the official language in India and that folks from both England and India have started to accept Indian writing in English. Indian leaders who were fluent in both their mother language and English, like Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu, and Sri Aurobindo, wrote in English instead of Bengali. Their writings were published and well-known in English. To show the Indian culture and energy, they used English. He said some negatives that were pointed on Indian writing in English, they were, It is called a parasitic literature. It is like one animal imitating the other. Felt poor when compared to their own language. Finally, we are here to see the Indian criticism in Indian writing, Indian critical works should also have strong standard and base. Translation of terms and tradition from Indian language to English is difficult. An Indian writing must satisfy both Indian and English readers. We need an experimental critical approach and we should approach this literature with open mind. 6 C.D. Narasimaiah Closepet Dasappa Narasimhaiah (1921–2005) was an Indian writer, literary critic and the principal of Maharaja’s College, Mysore. Narasimhaiah was best known for his literary criticisms and for bringing out an abridged version of Discovery of India of Jawaharlal Nehru, under the title, Rediscovery of India. He was a recipient of the Rajyotsava Prashasti honor of the Government of Karnataka. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour, the Padma Bhushan, in 1990, for his contributions to literature. Narasimhaiah, the first patron of Asian origin of the Association of the Study of Australia in Asia (ASAA), published several books on literature, culture and arts, the abridged version of Discovery of India of Jawaharlal Nehru, published in 1981 by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund is the most notable among them. He died in Bengaluru, at his daughter’s house, on 12 April 2005, at the age of 83, survived by his children; his wife had preceded him in death. Critical Analysis The essay talks about C.D. Narasimhaiah’s views on Indian English Literature and Language. His deliberations revolve around Indian English literature i.e. the literature (poetry, fiction) produced by The Indian English writers on an Indian theme. C.D. Narasimhaiah brings comparative observations of Indian literature, British literature, American literature and other new kinds of literature in English. But his main interest is Indian literature in English. The critical responses of Narasimhaiah are of a mixed idiom of New Criticism. We can distinguish his critical responses from that of F.R. Leavis. While, Leavis spent his critical energies on constructing/identifying an essence called ‘Englishness,’ Narasimhaiah’s efforts were directed towards presenting a construct called ‘Indianness’. Narasimhaiah applied the criteria Levis suggested to the works of literature of English, America, West India, Canada, Africa, Australia and of course India. He popularized the ideas of Leavis through his pioneering works in India. Narasimhaiah’s interest in Sanskrit poetics was heightened by this intention to ‘Identify’ an Indianness that is comparable to the Englishness that had become the basis of the paradigm in literary interpretation and evaluation. Narasimhaiah was fascinated by Indian poets/critics like Bharata, Dandin, Bhamaha, Vamana to Kuntaka, Anandavardhana, Adhinavagupta, Kshemendra, Rajeshekhara and Viswanatha, and their terms ‘Rasa, Riti, Guna, Alankara, Aucity, 7 Dhvani and Rasanubhava (the imaginative experience of a work of art)’. He presented these as important criteria for identifying Indianness in a literary work. The other term/concept he employs in his criticism is Purushartha-s, which denotes ends or values. The four types of ends are Dharma, Artha, Kama, and Mokasha. Parama Purushartha is the ultimate end of life, which is the attainment of self –realization. This value is crucial to Narasimhaiah’s criticism. About Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana and Mahabharata can be seen in most of his critical works.He also employs concepts/terms like Pradhanarasa, Rasa- dhvani, prayojana, and purushartha to analyze and evaluate contemporary works of art. He finds Indianness not only in the Indian works but also in the works of T.S. Shakespeare and Keats. He cites the example of Eliot’s ‘The Cocktail Party’ to show what he means by relating literary works of the West to our own experience. He uses Indian terms like Samaja kalyana or loka kalyana (one who has renounced life) to analyze the experience of the major character in the play, Celia. But this is not done to assert the superiority of Indian aesthetics alone. The object of comparison is to feel fortified in the validity and adequacy of our value system Narasimhaiah’s appropriation of Leavis’s criticism is an interesting example of a critic carving out a position from which to attempt a comparative study. He examines Leavis’ concepts of man, society, and civilization, which had served the in English critic’s purpose adequately, and find them wanting. To the Indian critic, Narasimhaiah would say, it could be Man, World and God because for an Indian critic, world basically means society and civilisation. He emphasizes that the critical appreciation should be done ‘In an attitude of detachment’ by creating ‘a critical climate’ which he has strived to create over the years. Narasimhaiah sees colonial hangover as a main problem that Indian literary criticism faces. Under the colonial rule, we tend to look up to the Western styles and then to the European styles for our writing and looks through their eyes, both of which led to a compulsion that made us depend on Western critical criteria and even values to deal with our literature and stopped us from exploring for other Indian alternatives. But, in a thirst for values, the world has started to recognise the beauty of Indian philosophy. Sanskrit literature gained more attention from the British rather than the Indians. The British orientalists who had no knowledge of the literary values of India started doing the work of translations of the Vedas, Upanishads and Sanskrit 8 drama. Narasimhaiah sees this as the opportunity for the Indian critics to bring out their true Indianness to focus. UNIT – II PAPER BOAT – RABINDRANATH TAGORE About the Author Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. The Tagore family was one of the most wealthy and powerful families of the country. As a child, Tagore was influenced by theatre, music, literature and philosophy, but hated formal education and found inspiration in nature. He began writing poetry from a young age and had early success first within his home region of Bengal, and then across all of India. Throughout his life he published almost 60 volumes of poetry. It was the form of writing he most loved, but Tagore was also a prolific composer, painter, critic, essay and fiction writer, experimenting with many different literary forms. His poems frequently expressed love of nature, mysticism and spirituality. His poetry collection Gitanjali in 1912 brought international fame and he became the first non-western writer to be awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore travelled to many different countries around the world, meeting a variety of eminent figures from different walks of life from Albert Einstein to the poet Robert Frost and writer H.G. Wells. He was also a strong supporter of Indian independence from the British Empire and was often a political ally of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1919, in response to the killing of over 350 Indian civilians by the British army – the Amritsar Massacre – Tagore gave up the knighthood he had been awarded by Britain in 1915. As a man of enormous literary and political accomplishments, Tagore became an iconic figure of Indian heritage and culture in later life. He died in 1941 aged 80, and is regarded as one of the outstanding literary figures in the history of India. He had a lasting impact on the language and culture of his home region Bengal, as part of a movement that provided an example to the whole country. Outline of the Poem The poem, Paper Boat was written by Tagore in July. It rains and showers a lot in July. Tagore remembers a certain July day when he was a child. He has a sudden memory of that day. 9 Tagore plays by himself when he is a boy. It might have rained because he floats a paper boat in a small stream. Tagore is happy with his paper boat even though he is by himself. All of a sudden, thick clouds appear in the sky. The wind is very strong, and it rains very hard. The rain moves the still water around. There are holes in the muddy water where the mud is mixed with it. These things get in the way of Tagore’s paper boat and his peace of mind. Tagore’s boat and his peace of mind are both upset by the rain. As a child, Tagore comes to the conclusion that the rain was meant to happen. Its goal was to make him unhappy. Tagore thinks that the rain was mad at him. Tagore settles down with his present after remembering his childhood. Right now he thinks that fate is playing a lot of tricks on him. He feels bad that he yelled at the rain when he was younger. At the same time, he laughs at how naive he was about weather and nature when he was younger. The Paper Boat by Tagore is a short song written in prose. Almost all of his songs are dull. This song is short and has few ideas. As a kid, Tagore thinks about his own mind, and as an adult, he enjoys his own innocence. The poem shows how the worlds of innocence and understanding are different. Critical Analysis Rabindranath Tagore is an Indian poet. He has won Nobel Prize for literature for his English translation Gitanjali from Bengali. It discusses Tagore’s early years. It displays how a child views the natural world and itself. “Paper Boats” is a poem about identity, connection, and imagination. The speaker wants to connect with people, so it’s clear that they hope someone far away will find their paper boats and know who they are. The name of their village also adds to the sense that they belong and have roots. A big part of the story is about link and identity. The speaker wants someone in a different place to know and recognize them. Putting their name on the boats could be seen as a way for them to show that they are there and that they are unique. The poem has imagination in it because the speaker uses metaphors and the last line sounds like a dream. Some might see the clouds as sails and the fairies as sleep sailing the boats as signs of the speaker’s ability to dream and picture things that aren’t possible in this world. Overall, the poem shows how we want to connect with others and be noticed, and how our imaginations can take us to new places and open up new opportunities. 10  THE VILLAGE SONG – SAROJINI NAIDU About the author Sarojini Naidu (13 February 1879 – 2 March 1949) was an Indian political activist and poet who served as the first Governor of United Provinces, after India’s independence. She played an important role in the Indian independence movement against the British Raj. She was the first indian woman to be president of the Indian National Congress and appointed as governor of a state. Born in a Bengali family in Hyderabad, Naidu was educated in Madras, London and Cambridge. Following her time in Britain, where she worked as a suffragist, she was drawn to the Congress party’s struggle for India’s independence. She became a part of the national movement and became a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and his idea of swaraj (self rule). She was appointed Congress president in 1925 and, when India achieved its independence, became Governor of the United Provinces in 1947. Naidu’s literary work as a poet earned her the nickname the “Nightingale of India” by Gandhi because of the colour, imagery and lyrical quality of her poetry. Her oeuvre includes both children’s poems and others written on more serious themes including patriotism and tragedy. Published in 1912, “In the Bazaars of Hyderabad” remains one of her most popular poems. Text Full are my pitchers and far to carry, Lone is the way and long, Why, O why was I tempted to tarry Lured by the boatmen’s song? Swiftly the shadows of night are falling, Hear, O hear, is the white crane calling, Is it the wild owl’s cry? There are no tender moonbeams to light me, If in the darkness a serpent should bite me, Or if an evil spirit should smite me, Ram re Ram! I shall die. My brother will murmur, “ Why doth she linger? “ My mother will wait and weep, Saying, “ O safe may the great gods bring her, 11  The Jamuna’s waters are deep. “... The Jamuna’s waters rush by so quickly, The shadows of evening gather so thickly, Like black birds in the sky... O! if the storm breaks, what will betide me? Safe from the lightning where shall I hide me? Unless Thou succour my footsteps and guide me, Ram re Ram! I shall die. Outline of the Poem The poem is about the traditional way of life in a town, how close the young girl is to her family, and how the darkness makes her feel anxious. The little girl in the song is calling from a river that is far from her home. She has gone to get water. A lot of places in India don’t have running water, so people have to travel a long way to get water from wells, rivers, ponds, and other bodies of water. Women of the house usually do this job. They bring pots or other containers full of water to meet the needs of the family. In this poem, the poet talks about a girl who goes to a river to get water. The folk song “Village Song” is from Sarojini Naidu’s second collection of poems, The Bird of Time. The rustic environment reminds me of how Indian country women get their pitcher of water every day from a long way away. The girl from the poem’s country area has gone home after getting water from the Yamuna River. The road to her house is lonely, and as night falls, she feels scared. She feels bad that she gave in to the allure of waiting to hear the boatman’s beautiful song. She is scared by the white crane’s hooting, and she thinks it is the owl hooting. She is afraid of getting stung by a snake because there is no moonlight to help her. She was born and raised in a small Indian village where folk beliefs are common. She believes that evil spirits that roam the area will use evil charms on her to kill her. In India, both men and women often shout “Ram ra Ram” when they are scared or excited. In addition, the snake and the bad spirits represent the hidden dangers that exist in modern society. This line may have been inspired by the well-known Radha-Krishna story, which is told in even the most remote towns in India. Her safety is not the only thing that worries her. She is worried that her parents and brother will get mad at her for being late. Her mother would be so upset that she would beg the gods to protect her daughter and bring her home safely. Without a question, her brother would be interested in why she was late. Everyone is aware of the dangers that come with a river that big like the Yamuna. The growing darkness and the gathering of 12 blackbirds in the sky are likened to show how worried and stressed the maiden is. The girl is afraid that lightning will strike her soon because it’s going to storm. Because she can’t do anything about these risks, she prays to God to protect her and show her the way home safely. In the last line, when the maiden shouts “Ram re Ram! “, she shows that she still has complete faith in Lord Rama. “I will die” because she thought that her savior would save her. Critical Analysis “The Village Song” is a folk lyric written in the style of a conversation between a mother and her daughter. The girl’s romantic side wants to run away from the pain and sadness of the real world and live in a perfect world of nature and the supernatural. The mom talks to her sweet daughter and asks her where she’s going. Would she throw away all of her wealth into the wind, and would she leave her mother, who has fed her “golden grain” (loving care) during her childhood? She was coming on horseback to marry her boyfriend. Would she also break his heart and make him very sad? But the daughter, who is sick of the harsh facts of everyday life, is set on leaving. She would go to the lovely forests where the Koels were singing and the smell of the sweet Champa flower filled the air. She has to go to the beautiful forest because the fairies are calling her. When she hears their call, she tells her mother to also listen. The mother is still trying to keep her in her own world. There are many good things in the world, like sweet lullabies and marriage songs, as well as lots of free time and the smell of sandalwood. Her beautiful wedding dress, which will be golden and white, is being made. Also ready are the tasty wedding cakes. Because of this, she shouldn’t leave, leaving all of these joys behind and making her mother and groom very sad. In this way, the mother tries to counter her daughter’s beautiful escape world by painting a picture of their real life that is far from reality. But you can’t stop the kid. It’s much stronger when the fairies call. She tells her mother the truth: the happiness in this world is short-lived, and the fun she’s talking about is running away. The wind of death quickly turns the light of happiness into darkness. The songs of the bush are more beautiful and last longer than the songs of the world. She is going to the woods to enjoy the soothing sounds of the birds and the water. She has to leave because the fairies are calling her. She can’t stay with her anymore. 13  This sweet lyric vividly and strongly expresses the heart’s eternal desire for the far away, the strange, and the unknown, or for the world that is always beautiful and sweet, regardless of people’s happiness or sadness. Without a doubt, Sarojini Naidu has captured the essence and simplicity of the folk song. THE LOTUS – TORU DUTT About the Author The daughter of a justice of the peace, Toru Dutt was born in Calcutta to a family of high- caste cultivated Hindus, and her parents were converts to Christianity. She received a broad education at home with her sister Aru. At 13, she and her sister were sent to France to study for a few months and attended a convent in Nice. The family moved to Cambridge, England, in 1871, and the sisters heard lectures that the philosopher Henry Sidgwick and other liberal dons had begun for women. The family returned to India in 1873, and as Dutt resumed her studies, she began learning Sanskrit. With a strong affinity for the French character and an aptitude for the French language, she undertook a study of French romantic poetry and produced essays on Leconte de Lisle and Josephin Soulary as well as a series of English translations of poetry. In 1876, the translations were collected in A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields. Her collection Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan was selected from work left unpublished at the time of her early death, and these English versions of native Indian legends have been said to show strong original power. After Dutt’s death of tuberculosis while in her early 20s, her novel, written in French and entitled Le Journal de Mlle. d’Avers, was published in 1879. Dutt is regarded as a pioneer for her writings in an age when few Indian women published. Text Love came to Flora asking for a flower That would of flowers be undisputed queen, The lily and the rose, long, long had been Rivals for that high honour. Bards of power Had sung their claims. “The rose can never tower Like the pale lily with her Juno mien”-- 14  ”But is the lily lovelier?” Thus between Flower-factions rang the strife in Psyche’s bower. ”Give me a flower delicious as the rose And stately as the lily in her pride”-- ”But of what colour?”--”Rose-red,” Love first chose, Then prayed,--”No, lily-white,--or, both provide;” And Flora gave the lotus, “rose-red” dyed, And “lily-white,”--the queenliest flower that blows. Outline of the Poem The poem “Lotus” was written by Toru Dutt, a renowned poet of Indian English Literature. So important was Toru Dutt’s work in writing that people outside of India know her name. She died too soon, which was sad, and her death was a great loss for Indo-Anghan poems. Petrarch’s “The Lotus” is a golden poem. Toru is very sensitive to nature and color, as this piece shows. There are many times when we fight for “positions” that might or might not be true. You can read this poem in a way that makes you see and accept both the good and bad things about it. When we weigh and connect the good traits, we get an excellent quality. This writing has a message. It tells us. There is a lot more to think about than just the fact that the author has drawn attention to the blooming of a flower called Lotus. Toru Dutt has given the flowers a personal touch by making them argue with each other. This flower has been a favorite of Indian gods and queens for a long time. The gods Vishnu and Laxmi both love this flower. These days, many awards, like the Padamshri, Padam Bhushan, and Padam Vibhushan, are named after the lotus flower. Toru Dutt thinks that the lotus flower is the most beautiful in terms of color and shape. The poet writes about a fight between flowers in the style of a beauty pageant. Both the rose and the lily want to be called the best flower. Flora, the goddess of flowers, thinks the lotus is the most beautiful flower because it has the white color of a lily and the red color of a rose. Because of this, the flower and the rose are not as beautiful as the lotus. Because the lily and rose are western flowers, the lotus’s win shows that Indian culture has won over the western world. 15  Love once asked Flora, the goddess of spring and flowers, for a flower that would be the strongest flower queen. In this case, the lily and the rose had been enemies for a long time. There are songs that talk about the “delicious rose” and the “stately lily.” There are people in the flower world who think the rose will never be able to “tower” as high as the lily. (The flower and root of the lily stand straight up.) While others came out saying that the lily couldn’t be as “delicious” as the rose (the color of the rose makes everyone look at it). This is a beautiful way to use the word. Once more, the peace had been broken. Love finally made up his mind. He asked Flora to give him a flower that was both sweet and elegant, like a rose or a lily. A flower that was a mix of red and white was born from Flora. When they saw this, the rose and flower turned red with shame and dropped their petals in grief. People have thought of the lotus as the most beautiful flower ever since. Critical Analysis The poem “The Lotus” by Toru Dutt is about making a flower the queen. Love makes it hard to make a choice when it wants to. Over the years, poets have written about different parts of the rose and the lily, which are both competing for the highest honor. In each case, it seems that one has a stronger case than the other. The first eight lines (octave) of the song give two reasons why the rose and lily are better. As Love continues to look for the perfect flower, the argument comes to an end in the sestet. With love, you want to be “the queenliest flower that blooms” in every way. The lotus flower, which was both “rose-red dyed” and “lily-white,” is the best choice for the role of queen of flowers in this case. On a deeper, more symbolic level, the song is about how the mind, love, and plants work. Love asks flowers what they think is the best way to live a happy, peaceful life. At first, plants show what’s going on in the mind by showing how different emotions and thoughts rise and fall: pride (lily) and seriousness (rose); purity and love; stateliness and deliciousness; life and death, etc. Then love asks for an answer where opposites come together and become a whole that works well together. And plants give us “the Lotus,” which in Indian philosophy stands for a single idea. Dutt shows how great her imaginative world is. Greek and Roman stories have something to do with both Love and Flora. Latin legend says that Cupid is love. He loved Psyche, the pretty girl. Roman legend says that Flora is the goddess of flowers and spring. 16  The poem correctly follows the structure of a Petrarchan sonnet. The first eight lines of the poem show how tense it is when the competing flower groups argue about the pros and cons of rose and lily, who are the ultimate claims to being the best. These six lines calm things down by showing that the goddess Flora chooses the Lotus flower instead of the rose or the lily. The Lotus flower has the sweetness and redness of the rose and the elegance and beauty of the lily. There are ‘abba abba cd cd dc’ rhymes in the song. Love, Flora, the rose, and the lily are all personifications. There are also similes and metaphors, such as “Rose can never tower like pale lily” and “a flower delicious as the rose” and “stately as the lily.” “Revens” are the flowers. “High honor” comes to mind. One cannot “tower” over the other. There are both conversations and descriptions in the poem. His mind is eager to learn and is always on the lookout for new things. He makes a mistake when he has to choose between affirmative and negative statements about beauty. All of this is clear from the use of hyphens.”But what color? A rose-red one,” love first said. “No, a lily-white one, or both will do,” she prayed. At the end, the artist talks about how to solve the problem. “In Hindu and Buddhist art, the lotus represents purity and spiritual realization that come from the mess of creation,” says Dr. Mary Ellis Gibson. A full lotus flower is often used to show the goddess Lakshmi, who is linked to wealth, beauty, and knowledge. So, Toru uses her own ideas of beauty, inspiration, and literary power instead of the ones that are common in Europe. The lotus, with its red and white petals, is more beautiful than even Juno. Some people also believe that the lotus’s blooms opening up represent the soul’s growth. The lotus flower is India’s national flower, so Dutt may have meant for this “battle” of beauty to have political overtones. Dutt uses her European influences, like the form and language of the poem and Roman legend, to show that the lotus flower is important in Indian and Hindu culture. She doesn’t show how important the lotus flower is to the Hindu gods, but instead she shows how important it is to the society that her readers think is the most important. The Lotus shows a picture of life that is peaceful. The message is that being better means having traits that are opposite to each other at the same time. The poem has a light mood, figures that are only symbolic, and an idealistic message. 17  STILL ANOTHER VIEW OF GRACE – AK RAMANUJAM About the Author A. K. Ramanujan, born in Mysore, India in 1929, came to the U.S. in 1959, where he remained until his death in Chicago on July 13, 1993. Not only was Ramanujan a transnational figure, but he was also a transdisciplinary scholar, working as a poet, translator, linguist, and folklorist. Although he wrote primarily in English, he was fluent in both Kannada, the common public language of Mysore, and Tamil, the language of his family, as well. Ramanujan received his BA and MA in English language and literature from the University of Mysore. He then spent some time teaching at several universities in South India before getting a graduate diploma in theoretical linguistics from Deccan University in Poona in 1958. The following year, he went to Indiana University where he received a PhD in linguistics in 1963. In 1962, he became an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, where he was affiliated throughout the rest of his career. However, he did teach at several other U.S. universities, including Harvard, University of Wisconsin, University of Michigan, University of California at Berkeley, and Carlton College. At the University of Chicago, Ramanujan was instrumental in shaping the South Asian Studies program. He worked in the departments of South Asian Languages and Civilizations and Linguistics and with the Committee on Social Thought. In 1976, the government of India awarded him the honorific title “Padma Sri,” and in 1983, he received a MacArthur Fellowship. Text I burned and burned. But one day I turned and caught that thought by the screams of her hair and said: “Beware, Do not follow a gentleman’s morals with that absurd determined air. Find a priest. Find any beast in the wind for a husband. He will give a houseful of legitimate sons. It is too late for sin, 18  even for treason. And I have no reason to know your kind. Bred Brahmin among singers of shivering hymns I shudder to the bone at hungers that roam the street beyond the constable’s beat.” But there She stood upon that dusty road on a night lit April mind and gave me a look. Commandments crumbled as in my father’s past. Her tumbled hair suddenly known as silk in my hand.I shook a little and took her behind the laws of my land. Outline of the Poem Ramanujan’s poems are mostly about the conflict between modern, open Western views and conservative Indian beliefs and ways of thinking that come from prejudices and old traditions. His poetry shows the mental struggle that the modern, liberal Indian mind has when it tries to ignore and reject all traditions, beliefs, practices, and culture. Still Another View of Grace is a poem from The Striders, a book that came out in 1966. This essay is about the speaker’s deep-seated conservatism and cultural beliefs, which are at odds with his strong physical desire for sex. An effect of his Brahminical family background on the other hand. When the speaker of the poem first says that they are burning with sexual desire, it shows a lot of courage. As he hesitates at the thought of making love to her. In order to get physical love, his sexy wants tell him to ignore other people’s rules. The speaker said, But one day I turned and caught that thought by the screams of her hair and said: Beware, Do not follow a gentleman’s morals With that absurd determined air. In these lines, sexual desire is a woman, and the speaker’s attempt to hold back his burning desires by screams of her hair is a strong attempt to do so. But desires do not go away so easily. 19 “Gentlemen’s morals” refers to traditional Indian values and morals that keep the speaker from immediately satisfying his sexual needs. The speaker’s conservative and orthodox self gives a speech about the importance of a spiritually holy marriage and how people should only get married to have children. The speaker tells the woman to find a priest and marry any animal in the wind. He is going to give her a house full of real kids. Traditional Indian ethics and the speaker’s Brahminical family background say that having sex outside of faith and society-approved marriage is a sin. He says that his sexual desire makes him want to commit this sin through any plot or betrayal. At the sight of hunger on the street, the thought of mixing lust sends chills down my spine. Clearly, hunger in this case refers to the speaker’s sexual desires, which he wants to satisfy right away but can’t because of his gentlemanly values. The way they talked about the constables’ beat makes me think of the quiet, dark April night, which is similar to the speaker’s dark desires and hunger that are roaming around in the dark corners of his thoughts. The end of the point, on the other hand, says that sexual desires won out over traditional Indian values and ethics. As the speaker’s wife shows up in front of him at night. It’s getting harder for the speaker to hold on to the conservative morals and ideals of his ancestors. In my dad’s past, the Ten Commandments fell apart. The woman, who is probably a prostitute looking for work on that April night, approaches and looks at the speaker. The speaker likes her physically because her messy hair feels like silk in his hand. The speaker’s last words shook her a little and made her think of “the laws of my land.” He trembles not only because he is sexually excited, but also because he is nervously afraid as he tries to throw away the moral teachings of his ancestors and the cultural values and ethos of his country. The speaker finally gives in to his sexual urges and makes love to the woman, disregarding established traditional morals and ethics. A short song with 17 lines Even so We get a different idea of the Grace when we read A.K. Ramanujan’s usual use of metaphors and play with words. Ramanujan is known for his economy, precision, and simplicity. Even though his language seems simple and everyday, every word and phrase is full of hidden meanings. There is something dramatic about the song. Its casual conversational style, the way it shows a mental conflict and moral problem that never goes away, and the buildup to the final, climactic moment near the end. The point grabs the 20 reader’s attention with its modern take on a sensitive cultural problem, drawing on suggestive and evocative wars and using metaphorical language. Critical Analysis Ramanujan is a poet of Indian descent. His poems and other creative works have earned him a lot of praise. People like him because his writing style goes toward the modernist idea that art should show the worst in people. The poem “Still Another View of Grace” is about sexual urges and the struggle between modernity and tradition. Throughout the poem, sexual desires and traditional morals clash within the speaker, but the sexual desires win out. In the song, the speaker struggles with sexual desire more than anything else. The speaker naturally wants to be physical with a woman, but this makes them feel conflicted. The words “burned and burned” show how much the speaker wants a woman. The “hair” stands for the woman. “The screams of the hair” caught the speaker off guard, and it bothers him. Getting his libido and psychological id to work together goes against this Hindu custom. However, the poem gives the sexual desire a persona: a woman. There is a struggle between heritage and modernity in this piece because the speaker is having an inner conflict. Modern life shuts down the psychological superego, which makes it easier to give in to sexual urges. Tradition, on the other hand, shuts down the psychological id and focuses on the ego. One can see the psychological effects of ego in the poem, where he makes a good case for why he should go to a priest and get married if he really wants to be physically close to her. This shows how tradition is stronger than technology. The speaker also said that if he marries her, he will be able to satisfy his sexual desires and have many legitimate kids. It’s a psychological id implication, and the poem shows that custom is stronger than modernity. Alternatively, one could say that modernity wins out in the end, which shows how modernism and tradition clash in the poem. Unfortunately, the speaker can’t fight his inner desire, and he gives in to it. This shows that he rejects tradition over technology. As the speaker tells the desire not to bother the “gentleman” who is following his Hindu moral tradition, the lines “Do not follow a gentleman’s morals” show how tradition and modernity meet in the poem. The song also talks about the postcolonial idea of “inbetweeness.” The person speaking is stuck between old and new. Even though the speaker says he was born a Hindu and is Brahmin, he is now in between because he wants a woman. He is “shudder” to the bone, just like the poor 21 people living on the streets, who make the police officer feel useless to help them. The speaker seems to be saying that he, too, feels powerless because there is no one outside of him who can control or tame his sexual urges. Due to his strong sexual desires, he is stuck between technology and tradition. Ramanujan is able to show the evil side of being male. An image of a flame burning inside the speaker draws attention to a man’s sexual ability. In his poems, the author doesn’t hold back from writing about this darker side of masculinity, which shows how brave and bold he is as a person. RIVER ONCE – R PARTHASARATHY About the Author Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. The Tagore family was one of the most wealthy and powerful families of the country. As a child, Tagore was influenced by theatre, music, literature and philosophy, but hated formal education and found inspiration in nature. He began writing poetry from a young age and had early success first within his home region of Bengal, and then across all of India. Throughout his life he published almost 60 volumes of poetry. It was the form of writing he most loved, but Tagore was also a prolific composer, painter, critic, essay and fiction writer, experimenting with many different literary forms. His poems frequently expressed love of nature, mysticism and spirituality. His poetry collection Gitanjali in 1912 brought international fame and he became the first non-western writer to be awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore travelled to many different countries around the world, meeting a variety of eminent figures from different walks of life from Albert Einstein to the poet Robert Frost and writer H.G. Wells. He was also a strong supporter of Indian independence from the British Empire and was often a political ally of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1919, in response to the killing of over 350 Indian civilians by the British army – the Amritsar Massacre – Tagore gave up the knighthood he had been awarded by Britain in 1915. As a man of enormous literary and political accomplishments, Tagore became an iconic figure of Indian heritage and culture in later life. He died in 1941 aged 80, and is regarded as one of the outstanding literary figures in the history of India. He had a lasting impact on the language and culture of his home region Bengal, as part of a movement that provided an example to the whole country. 22 Text With paper boats boys tickle my ribs and buffalos have turned me to a pond there’s eaglewood in my hair and stale flowers, every evening as bells toll in the forehead of the temples I see a man on the steps clean his arse kingfishers and egrets whom I fed have flown my paps Also emperors and poets who slept in my arms I am become a sewer now, no one has any use for vaikai river,once of this sweet city. Outline of the Poem This poem emphasizes human exploitation of nature. The river in Parthasarathy’s “River, Once” is the Vaigai River in Madurai. This song talks about the river as if it were a mother. The river used to be beautiful, but now it’s just a sewer because people have used it for illegal things. The first line of the song talks about how sad the river Vaikai is right now. Kids come to float paper boats in it, and buffaloes lie down in it, making it feel like a pond. The river is full of dead flowers and wood bark. It looks like eaglewood and dead flowers are in the mother’s (rivers) hair. Men come to the river to poop or bathe even when the temple bell is ringing. The river loses its holy power forever. The word “ribs” here refers to the riverbanks. The river knows it’s dirty and ugly, which is clear proof that people have abused it. The river that used to be beautiful is now just a place to dump trash and do dirty and evil things. After this, the author talks about the river’s past glory. How artists used it as a place to get ideas and Emperors and Kings used it as a safe place to stay. As a mother, she was happy to feed birds like 23 Kingfishers and Egrets (which are white herons). As you may know, “egrets” are a sign of cleanliness, patience, and a long life in Chinese culture. A lot of people also believed that herons could talk to Gods. Most people think that seeing a kingfisher means good luck. So, both the kingfisher and the egret talk about how the river Vaikai used to be rich, pure, and holy. Now, they have all flown away from her breasts (paps) because she can’t feed them anymore because she has become nothing more than a sewer. “River, Once” is the title of the song, and it means “river no longer.” Indeed, it used to be a river, but now it’s a sewer because people have polluted it and don’t care about nature. At the end of the song, the river Vaikai realizes that it is no longer needed. Throughout the poem, pictures that are very different from each other help to show how the river used to be beautiful and how it is now.... People see the river as a sign of life, but it is now polluted, just like people. A.K. Ramanujan’s poem “A River” influenced Parthasarathy’s poem “River, Once.” Parthasarathy accepts this. Parthasarathy and Ramanujan both use writing to show how the world’s ecosystems are out of check. Parthasarathy wants people to change how they feel about nature; he wants them to understand how depended on each other they are. Critical Analysis “River once” by R. Parthasarathy says that it was a river in the past but isn’t now because people don’t care about nature’s beauty. He talks about how shocked he is by how badly the river Vaikai, which runs through the city of Madurai, has been damaged. The poet really uses contrast to show how the river that was once the birthplace of a great society is now just a sewer. People think of the water as a mother. Mother River laments her lost fame and talks about how sorry she is right now. The Vaikai used to be a fast-moving river that never stopped, and a great society grew up along its banks. Since then, boys have used it as a playground, and the naughty boys “tickle the ribs” with paper boats. Someone once used the word “ribs” to talk about the banks of rivers. The buffalo have turned the river into a pond and are having a good time in it. Along the river, there used to be flower fields, but now there are only thorny bushes and shrubs. Eaglewood and state flowers are in my hair. An awful lot of eaglewood floats on the water now, and flowers thrown into it can also be the sun. was once a safe place for emperors and artists to stay. Poets from the past looked to her for ideas. They wrote great poems because of her. This part of the poem talks about the three great Tamil Academies that were very popular in 24 Madurai in the past, as well as the important role that Sangam writers played in making ancient Tamil poetry so rich. Birds like Kingfishers and egrets used to come to the river often, and it fed them like a mother. They have now flown away because she can’t feed them. In a funny and ironic way, the artist paints a very different picture of the river today. One man goes to the river every night “when bells roll in the forehead of temples” to poop in it, not caring that the temple bell is calling to God. The poem shows this horrible scene to show how people don’t care about nature’s beauty. People used to gather on the banks of the Vaikai River for good reasons, but now, sadly, they do it for bad reasons. These days, the river Vaikai is filled with trash. Actually, “River, ‘Once” is a very strong poem that shows how strongly the author feels and expresses those feelings. The river is a picture of life flowing through it, but now that it’s dirty, it’s just a picture of what life has become for people. Because the author is sad about how the river is dying, he or she seems to be saying that nature made everything beautiful, but people have made it ugly because they have lost their sense of wonder and beauty. The poet was able to get this idea across through contrasting pen-pictures. UNIT – III STEAL AND ATONEMENT – MAHATMA GANDHI About the Author Mahatma Gandhi, originally named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was a prominent figure in Indian history. He was born in Porbandar, India, on October 2, 1869, he departed this world on January 30, 1948, in Delhi. Gandhi was a lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer, best known for leading the nationalist movement against British rule in India. He is often referred to as the “father of the nation” for his significant role in India’s struggle for independence. Gandhi’s most notable contribution was his advocacy of nonviolent protest, known as satyagraha, as a means to achieve political and social change. Gandhi’s influence extended beyond India, earning him the title of Mahatma, meaning “Great Soul.” However, his immense popularity came with challenges, as he faced large crowds wherever he went, making it difficult for him to work during the day and rest at night. He once wrote, “The woes of the Mahatmas are known only to the Mahatmas.” Gandhi’s reputation continued to grow even after his death, and today, his name is widely recognized and respected worldwide. 25 Text A relative and I became fond of smoking. Not that we saw any good in smoking, or were very fond of the smell of a cigarette. We simply imagined a sort of pleasure in emitting clouds of smoke from our mouths. My uncle had the habit, and when we saw him smoking, we thought we should copy his example. But, we had no money. So we began to collect stubs of cigarettes thrown away by my uncle. The stubs, however, were not always available and could not emit much smoke either. So we began to steal coins from the servant’s pocket money in order to purchase Indian cigarettes. In the meantime we heard that the stalks of a certain plant were porous and could be smoked like cigarettes. We got them and began this kind of smoking. But we were far from being satisfied with such things as these. Our want of independence began to upset us. It was unbearable that we should be unable to do anything without the permission of our elders. At last, in sheer disgust, we decided to commit suicide! But how were we to do it? From where were we to get the poison? We heard that dhatura seeds were an effective poison. Off we went to the jungle in search of these seeds, and we got them. Evening was thought to be an auspicious hour. We went to Kedarjee Mandir, put ghee in the temple lamp, had the darshan and then looked for a lonely corner. But our courage failed us. Supposing we were not instantly killed? And what was the good of killing ourselves? Why not rather put up with the lack of independence? But we swallowed two or three seeds nevertheless. We dared not take more. Both of us fought shy of death and decided to go to Ramji Mandir to compose ourselves, and to dismiss the thought of suicide. I realised that it was not as easy to commit suicide as to think about it. The thought of suicide ultimately resulted in both of us bidding good-bye to the habit of smoking stubs of cigarettes and of stealing the servant’s coppers for the purpose of smoking. Ever since I have grown up, I have never desired to smoke and always regard the habit of smoking as barbarous, dirty and harmful. I have never understood why there is such a rage for smoking throughout the world. I cannot bear to travel in a compartment full of people smoking. I become choked. But much more serious than this was the theft I was guilty of a little later. I stole the coins when I was twelve or thirteen, possibly less. The other theft was committed when I was fifteen. In this case I stole a bit of gold out of my brother’s armlet. This brother had run into a debt of 26 about twenty-five rupees. He had on his arm an armlet of solid gold. It was not difficult to clip a bit out of it. Well, it was done, and the debt cleared. But this became more than I could bear. I resolved never to steal again. I also made up my mind to confess it to my father. But I did not dare to speak. Not that I was afraid of my father beating me. No. I do not recall his ever having beaten any of us. I was afraid of the pain that I should cause him. But I felt that the risk should be taken; that there could not be a cleansing without a confession. I decided at last to write out the confession, to submit to my father, and ask for his forgiveness. I wrote it on a slip of paper and handed it to him myself. In this, not only did I confess my guilt, but I asked adequate punishment for it, and closed with a request to him not to punish himself for my offence. I also pledged myself never to steal in future. I was trembling as I handed the confession to my father. He was then confined to bed. His bed was a plain wooden plank. I handed him the note and sat opposite the plank. He read it through, and tears trickled down his cheeks, wetting the paper. For a moment he closed his eyes in thought and then tore up the note. He had sat up to read it. He lay down again. I also cried. I could see my father’s agony. If I were a painter I could draw a picture of the whole scene today. It is still so vivid in my mind. Those tears of love cleansed my heart, and washed my sin away. Then I could read in it nothing more than a father’s love; but today, I know that it was pure Ahimsa. When there is such Ahimsa, it changes everything it touches. There is no limit to its power. This kind of sublime forgiveness was not natural to my father. I had thought that he would be angry, say hard things, and strike his forehead. But he was so wonderfully peaceful, and I believe this was due to my clean confession. A clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit the sin again, is the purest type of repentance. I know that my confession made my father feel absolutely safe about me, and increased his affection for me beyond measure. Critical Analysis There are great people in every country who have done a lot for their country. Mahatma Gandhi was one of these people who worked very hard to free India. But only a few talk about the bad things they did as kids. But Mahatma Gandhi didn’t think twice about telling everyone about his mistakes. This is an excerpt from Mahatma Gandhi’s book My Experiments with Truth about stealing and making amends. Gandhiji and a friend tried to smoke like a family member 27 when they were kids. It was fun for them to blow out clouds of smoke. The thieves took money from the servant’s purse so they could buy smokes. He knew that they had to ask their elders for approval before they could do anything. Their goal was freedom, just like every other kid. They believed that life was pointless and that they should end it. A friend of Gandhiji and him got some deadly seeds, but they were too scared to eat them. They went to a temple and reached Atonement there. The Britannica Encyclopedia says that atonement is “the process by which people get back on good terms with God.” They became wiser after going to the temple. They made up their minds not to kill themselves and vowed to never smoke and steal again. Once the time was up, Gandhiji took some gold from his brother’s bracelet to pay off his bill. Having stolen, he felt bad about it and wanted to tell his father about it. When people make amends, they get rid of things that are getting in the way of their reunion. He knew that his father would be upset when he heard it. He was afraid of getting hit if he spoke out. He then wrote a letter in which he accepted he was wrong and asked you to punish him. He also asked his dad not to punish himself. His dad was crying, and the tears weren’t just tears of pain. They were tears of love and forgiveness. He learned the first thing about Ahimsa. POETRY FROM “EARLY CULTURAL WRITINGS” – SRI AUROBINDO About the Author Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on 15 August 1872. At the age of seven he was taken to England for education. There he studied at St. Paul’s School, London, and at King’s College, Cambridge. Returning to India in 1893, he worked for the next thirteen years in the Princely State of Baroda in the service of the Maharaja and as a professor in Baroda College. During this period he also joined a revolutionary society and took a leading role in secret preparations for an uprising against the British Government in India. In 1906, soon after the Partition of Bengal, Sri Aurobindo quit his post in Baroda and went to Calcutta, where he soon became one of the leaders of the Nationalist movement. He was the first political leader in India to openly put forward, in his newspaper Bande Mataram, the idea of complete independence for the country. Prosecuted twice for sedition and once for conspiracy, he was released each time for lack of evidence. Sri Aurobindo had begun the practice of Yoga in 1905 in Baroda. In 1908 he had the first of several fundamental spiritual realisations. In 1910 he withdrew from politics and went to 28 Pondicherry in order to devote himself entirely to his inner spiritual life and work. During his forty years in Pondicherry he evolved a new method of spiritual practice, which he called the Integral Yoga. Its aim is a spiritual realisation that not only liberates man’s consciousness but also transforms his nature. In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator, the Mother, he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Among his many writings are The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga and Savitri. Sri Aurobindo left his body on 5 December 1950. Text Poetry I take to be the measured expression of emotion. Of prose one asks, does the matter please, stimulate or instruct the intellect; does the style satisfy a cultured taste & observant literary sense; if it does so, it is good prose, whether it moves the heart or not. Of poetry we ask, does the matter move, stimulate, enlarge, heighten, or deepen the feelings; does it excite emotions of delight, sorrow, awe, sublimity, passionate interest, or if the nature of the subject matter is not such as to excite actual emotions, does it excite certain vague & nameless sensations, the quiet stirring of the heart which attends the perception of beauty, or the august tumult which goes with the sense of largeness & space or the quick delight of increased horizons & heart-searching perceptions, does it give us the sense of power & passion? If it does, we have the material of poetry, but not yet poetry. Prose can and often does create similar effects. Great thoughts, beautiful description, noble narrative will always have this power on the soul. We have also to ask, does the language & verse harmonise with the emotion, become part of it & expressive of it, swell with its fullness and yet bound & restrain it? If it does, then we have poetry, a thing mighty & unanalysable, to usurp whose place prose vainly aspires. Matter by itself does not make poetry; skill in verse & diction is not poetry; striking & brilliant phrases, melodious weavings of sound are not poetry; it is the natural & predestined blending or rather inseparable existence of great matter with great verse producing high emotions or beautiful matter with beautiful verse producing soft emotions that gives us genuine poetry. An identity of word & sound, of thought & word, of sound & emotion which seems to have been preordained from the beginning of the world and only awaited its destined hour to leap into existence, or rather was there from the beginning of the world & only dawned into sight at the right time, this rare identity is what we call poetry. 29 Outline of the Poem There are dialogues, biographical and historical sketches, and other short bits of prose in Early Cultural Writings. There are also essays on literature, schooling, and art. A few were written between 1910 and 1920, but most were written between 1890 and 1910. About three- fifths of the pieces, or a little more than half, were released while Sri Aurobindo was still alive. The other half were taken from his manuscripts and then typed up. The contents of the book are organized into nine parts based on topic. Along with the main text, there are two appendices that mostly contain unpublished information. Sri Aurobindo wrote “Poetry” and “Characteristics of Augustan Poetry” while he was a professor of English literature at Baroda College from 1898 to 1901. The two lectures were based on the writers and time periods that students at Bombay University had to study for the “voluntary” part of the English B.A. examination in 1898 and 1899. On blank pages of the manuscript, Sri Aurobindo wrote more parts for this talk. You can find these sections as footnotes. On its own, the book “Poetry” has a long passage that seems to build on the ideas in the third line of the lecture. Critical Analysis The writer says that writing is showing how you feel. If it’s writing, it should make the reader happy and interested. The way you write needs to be good language. A poem must be good in many ways, says the author. The poems should be about interesting and stimulating things. It should also make the feelings stronger and deeper. A poem should make you feel both happy and sad. The event should be very beautiful and fun. It looks like the verse will be interesting. It can’t give you a sense of power and energy if it’s not clear, hard to understand, or feels good. It’s not really poetry, even though we call it that. The piece of writing must have deep ideas, beautiful descriptions, and a clear storyline. It is very important for poetry or prose to harmonize with feeling in a way that makes you feel good. The “of word and sound, of thought and word, of sound and emotion...” have been set in stone since the beginning of time. It takes a certain amount of time for sounds, words, and feelings to come out. A real poem can happen in our lives if the right sounds, words, and feelings come together at the right time. If a piece of writing makes us feel something, we’ll know it’s real poems or prose. The poetry’s subject is not important on its own. “skill in verse & diction (choice of words) is not 30 poetry”. It’s not good writing, even if it has beautiful sounds and great phrases. Poetry that is real and good should have great subject and great verse go hand in hand. A great poem must make you feel strong emotions or have a beautiful topic. It must make people feel soft feelings. Only then will we get real art. ADDRESS AT THE FINAL SESSION – VIVEKANANDA About the Author Vivekananda (born January 12, 1863, Calcutta [now Kolkata]—died July 4, 1902, near Calcutta) Hindu spiritual leader and reformer in India who attempted to combine Indian spirituality with Western material progress, maintaining that the two supplemented and complemented one another. His Absolute was a person’s own higher self; to labour for the benefit of humanity was the noblest endeavour. Born into an upper-middle-class family of the Kayastha (scribes) caste in Bengal, he was educated at a Western-style university where he was exposed to Western philosophy, Christianity, and science. Social reform became a prominent element of Vivekananda’s thought, and he joined the Brahmo Samaj (Society of Brahma), dedicated to eliminating child marriage and illiteracy and determined to spread education among women and the lower castes. He later became the most-notable disciple of Ramakrishna, who demonstrated the essential unity of all religions. Always stressing the universal and humanistic side of the Vedas, the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism, as well as belief in service rather than dogma, Vivekananda attempted to infuse vigour into Hindu thought, placing less emphasis on the prevailing pacifism and presenting Hindu spirituality to the West. He was an activating force in the movement to promote Vedanta philosophy (one of the six schools of Indian philosophy) in the United States and England. In 1893 he appeared in Chicago as a spokesman for Hinduism at the World’s Parliament of Religions and so captivated the assembly that a newspaper account described him as “an orator by divine right and undoubtedly the greatest figure at the Parliament.” Thereafter he lectured throughout the United States and England, making converts to the Vedanta movement. On his return to India with a small group of Western disciples in 1897, Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission at the monastery of Belur Math on the Ganges (Ganga) River near Calcutta (now Kolkata). Self-perfection and service were his ideals, and the order continued 31 to stress them. He adapted and made relevant to the 20th century the very highest ideals of the Vedantic religion, and, although he lived only two years into that century, he left the mark of his personality on East and West alike. Text Sisters and Brothers of America, It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects. My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honour of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: ‘As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.’ The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world, of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: ‘Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to Me.’ Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced 32 than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal. Outline of the Story The World’s Parliament of Religions is now a reality, and the merciful Father has helped those who worked hard to make it happen and rewarded their selfless work. A big thank you to the good people whose big hearts and love of truth made this wonderful dream come true. Thank you to everyone who has posted something liberal on this site. I’d like to thank his educated audience for always being kind to me and appreciating every idea that helps religious differences. There were a few sharp notes here and there in this melody. I want to thank them in particular because their stark differences have made the overall peace taste better. There has been a lot of talk about the shared ground of religious unity. I’m not going to offer my own idea right now. But I tell anyone here who hopes that this unity will happen by one church winning and the others dying, “Brother, your hope is impossible.” Do I wish that the Christian would turn into a Hindu? Please don’t. Do I wish that everyone who is Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? Please don’t. People plant seeds in the ground and then cover them with dirt, air, and water. Does the seed turn into the ground, the air, or the water? No. It turns into a plant, grows according to its own growth law, takes in air, earth, and water, mixes them, and turns them into plant matter. The same is true for religion. A Christian shouldn’t become a Hindu or Buddhist, and a Hindu or Buddhist shouldn’t become a Christian. In order to grow, each person must take on the spirit of the others while still staying true to himself and following his own special rules. The Parliament of Religions has shown the world that holiness, purity, and charity are not just found in some churches, and that every religion has created holy men and women. In light of this proof, I feel terrible for anyone who wants to protect their own religion at all costs and destroy all others. I want them to know that soon, “Help and not Fight” will be written on the flag of every religion, no matter how hard people try to stop it. “Assimilation, not Destruction,” “Harmony and Peace, Not Dissension.” 33  UNIT – IV THE EYES ARE NOT HERE – RUSKIN BOND About the Author Ruskin Bond is an Indian author of British descent. He was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, India on May 19, 1934. He is known for his writing on the Indian hills and mountains, and his stories often feature the Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand regions. Bond has written over a hundred books, including novels, essays, and collections of short stories. Some of his most famous books include “The Blue Umbrella,” “A Flight of Pigeons,” “A Handful of Nuts,” and “The Room on the Roof.” He has received numerous awards for his writing, including the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan from the government of India. Outline The narrator was the only one in the room until Rohana came along. At the station, her parents said goodbye and were worried about her safety. They told her where to keep her things, not to lean out of windows, and not to talk to strangers. As soon as the train left the station, the narrator asked her if she was also going to Dehradun. She thought she was alone in the room when she heard the voice. The girl told him she was going to Saharanpur so her aunt could pick her up and take her home. She was also jealous of the narrator because the hills of Mussoorie, where he was going, were beautiful in October, the month the story takes place. She told her she had an interesting face, which was a pretty bold thing to say after more interesting conversation. She was pleased with this and responded that it was a nice change from hearing “You have a pretty face” all the time. The girl soon had to say goodbye because the train had arrived at her stop. The author then heard a noise near the carriage door and could hear a man saying sorry. The man then went into the compartment and said he was sorry for not being as attractive as the guy before him as a travel companion. When the storyteller asked him if the girl’s hair was long or short, he smiled and said that he had only noticed her beautiful eyes, which didn’t help her because she was blind. Critical Analysis Ruskin Bond’s “The Eyes Are Not Here” is a lovely and fascinating short story. The author told the story from the first-person point of view. 34  The story is about two people who meet on a train. Along the way, the trip brings two blind people together and lets them talk casually. They both try to act like they can see and don’t know about the other person’s condition. When the girl got on the train at Rohana, the man was already there. Her folks walked with her and told her not to talk to people she didn’t know. As she walked in, she didn’t even notice the storyteller, who was acting like they could see. He slowly got the nerve to strike up a chat. She was on her way to Saharanpur, where her aunt would meet her. They talked about their trip to Dehradun and Mussoorie when she asked them the same question. She sighed because she loved October in Mussoorie’s high areas too. As the chat went on, the narrator talked about how beautiful the hills, rain, and flowers were. He pretended to be blind and asked the girl to describe what was going on outside the train. She replied right away that he should look outside of himself. He told her she was pretty and that her face was interesting. She smiled at the words because she was tired of hearing people say nice things about how pretty she was. She told them she didn’t like long train rides and was excited that her stop was almost there. What broke the narrator’s heart was that he wanted the trip with the girl to never end. Soon, the stop came, and as the girl got ready to leave, the narrator caught a whiff of her perfume. He was drunk and tried to touch her hair in a weird way, but she said goodbye and got off the boat before he could. As the new passenger walked in, the storyteller sat back in his seat, sad and upset. Sad, the narrator pushed himself back toward the window. The new passenger was a man, and like the girl, he didn’t notice that the storyteller couldn’t see. He broke the ice by telling her he felt bad that he wasn’t as pretty as the girl they had just seen. The storyteller stuck to what he thought and said she was interesting. The man told him he didn’t see her hair when he asked about it. But the man gave her another praise. He said she was very pretty and had beautiful eyes, even though she was blind. This surprise the narrator, who thought about how pointless it was for him to try to hide the fact that he was blind in front of someone else who was blind. 35  SPARROWS – K. A. ABBAS About the Author Khwaja Ahmad Abbas (June 7, 1914 – June 1, 1987) was an Indian film director and producer, novelist, screenwriter, journalist, short story writer and playwright. In a career spanning over half a century, Abbas emerged on the Indian and global scene as a communicator of great repute. In the 73 years that he lived, he wrote more than 74 books. Besides numerous short stories, he also wrote several plays and stories for the film industry. As a journalist, he produced the longest-running column in the Indian history of journalism and shifted with effortless ease between his writings for newspapers, journals, and scripts for the Bombay film industry. His work flows in three languages- Urdu, Hindi and English. Abbas was a compulsive communicator. He used every medium at his command- be it newspaper columns, books, cinema; to transmit his message. As a writer, he consciously depicted the tales of ordinary people who accomplished heroic deeds simply by virtue of their undaunted spirit and sheer will to survive. His works and his ethos remain even more relevant in the India of today. Outline of the Story K.A. Abbas is a well-known Indian author of short stories. The poor and downtrodden people in his stories show how they feel. His short story “The Sparrow” shows how important it is to love and care for other people. Rahirn Khan is a farmer who is fifty years old. Everyone in the town hates him because he is so mean and harsh. He is mean to everyone, even kids and pets. People are afraid to talk to him. When the kids saw him, they would run away from their games. He was a very different person when he was younger, though. His dream was to join the circus, and he loved Radha, a Hindu girl. His parents, on the other hand, wanted him to marry a girl from their group. He once heard his father bragging to his mother about how well he was able to get his son to listen to him. Rahim Khan then chose to get back at his parents, his family, and society for beating him. Rahirn Khan’s first and most immediate target when he chose to get even was his wife. She was the person he blamed for all of his mistakes. All of a sudden, his kind heart turned into iron. Almost thirty years, he was mean to his wife, his two boys, and his two cows. He had fights with everyone in the village. After that, everyone in the village began to dislike him. After an 36 unusually bad beating six years before, his older son Bundu ran away from home. After three years, his second son Nuru joined his brother. One day, when Rahirn Khan comes home from working in the fields, an old neighbor tells him that his wife has gone to visit her brother and will be back soon. Rahim Khan is sure she won’t come back. He feels alone all of a sudden, not because he misses his family, but because he has no one to show how angry he is with. Nobody is there to wash his feet or give him food or other things to eat. He feels like a piece of furniture has been taken away from his house when his wife isn’t there. After that, Rahirn Khan is cleaning the roof when he sees a small bird nest in a corner. Right away, he wants to use his power against them. But after a long time, he comes to his senses and leaves them alone. He tries to see them better. The adult birds, on the other hand, don’t let him because they hover around him and blow hard at his face. He finds it funny that the little bird is doing such brave things to save the babies. He knows they care about and love the family. The kids get better quickly and start moving around in his house. He starts giving them breadcrumbs and other foods to eat. He calls them Bundu and Nuru, which are the names of his two kids. The way he acts and thinks about life has completely changed now. The locals also see that he has changed. But they kept being hostile toward him. He stopped yelling at the kids too. Rahirn Khan sees that the roof is leaking near the sparrow’s nest on a wet day. Right away, he climbs up on his roof to close the hole. The rain completely drenches him. He starts to sneeze but doesn’t stop right away. The next morning, he has a very high fever. Now, only the two birds are with him. At that moment, he wonders about how the two birds will be after he dies. A few days went by. The locals start to think something is wrong because Rahim Khan doesn’t seem to be leaving. They sent for his wife, who showed up with her kids. They heard the birds singing when they got inside and saw his body lying still. Critical Analysis Sparrows by K. A. Abbas paints a picture of a man who is big and skinny but has a poor soul. This man seems tough on the outside but is still kind on the inside. Khan Khwaja was a writer and director who made well-known movies like Shree, Awara, and Dharti ke laal. He has put together four sets of short stories that are the most realistic on the list. There is always a message behind the sparrow when it shows up in literature. Some say it means being alert, happy, creative, and wise, while others say it means love and kindness. But 37 it’s not clear that these things happened in Rahim’s life. The sparrows show up near the end of the story and change the title. That’s because Rahim has always been kind. The sparrows made their nest in the corner of the hut, and Rahim didn’t notice until much later. Similarly, Rahim’s sympathy had taken up residence in a hidden part of his heart, and no one had seen it. Different types of literature and art use rain to show a range of emotions, from dread to romance, from sadness to determination. In any way the artist chose, it has lost some of its meaning. For Sparrows, rain meant renewing his kindness, cleaning his mind, and thinking about himself. When he goes outside to fix the roof, it’s only to keep the sparrows dry, which isn’t even the most important thing he does. Rain means cleanliness. The house that stands out from the other huts in the village represents his isolation and lack of connection with others. The roof that leaks represents his broken home or family. The dark interior of the hut represents his nature, and the crack in his door represents the opening between his personal and private life that anyone can see through and judge. UNIT – V THE MAN-EATER OF MALGUDI - RK NARAYAN About the Author R.K. Narayan, (born October 10, 1906, Madras [Chennai], India—died May 13, 2001, Madras), one of the finest Indian authors of his generation writing in English. Reared by his grandmother, Narayan completed his education in 1930 and briefly worked as a teacher before deciding to devote himself to writing. His first novel, Swami and Friends (1935), is an episodic narrative recounting the adventures of a group of schoolboys. That book and much of Narayan’s later works are set in the fictitious South Indian town of Malgudi. Narayan typically portrays the peculiarities of human relationships and the ironies of Indian daily life, in which modern urban existence clashes with ancient tradition. His style is graceful, marked by genial humour, elegance, and simplicity. Among the best-received of Narayan’s 34 novels are The English Teacher (1945), Waiting for the Mahatma (1955), The Guide (1958), The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961), The Vendor of Sweets (1967), and A Tiger for Malgudi (1983). Narayan also wrote a number of short stories; collections include Lawley Road (1956), A Horse and Two Goats and Other Stories (1970), Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories (1985), and The Grandmother’s Tale (1993). In 38 addition to works of nonfiction (chiefly memoirs), he also published shortened modern prose versions of two Indian epics, The Ramayana (1972) and The Mahabharata (1978). Outline of the Story The novel’s location is the southern Indian city of Malgudi. There were two rooms in the press. Visitors and resting friends of Natraj used the front room as a parlor. People also sat there. An open blue sheet hung between the press and the parlor and served as a wall. People thought this was an important Press practice. Natraj was a simple man who liked peace and was happy with his life. He lived with his wife and son Babu in an old house on Kabir Street. The press was in front of Natraj’s house. The press was on the Market Road, and his house was on Kabir Street. His house was an ancestral home, and the formal division of the ancestral property took place while his father was still alive. Natraj’s mother moved in with his older brother in Madras after his father died. Natraj, his wife, and Babu were the only ones living in the house after this. Natraj never wanted his mother to move, but she had to because of circumstances. Some of Natraj’s friends are the author, the reporter Sen, and the typer Sastri. Natraj printed, sewn, ruled, and bound the books. They worked together like a boss and employee. In the living room, they were talking about how bad the government was when Vasu, a customer, came in and placed a large order. There was one day that Sastri didn’t show up to the press. Natraj worked alone in the press and did all of his work. Vasu broke the press’s rules by peeking through the curtain and then going inside. Vasu asked Natraj to print 500 letterheads and 500 business cards. Tatya was interested in Vasu’s past, so he asked him about it. Vasu said that even though he has an M.A., a shadow once inspired him to work out regularly and eat a lot of food. This helped him get very strong. He was strong enough to break chains, twist iron bars, and grind rock into a fine powder or dust. As soon as he showed his Guru to be wrong, he fought with him and hurt him, and he soon left his Guru. After that, he became interested in taxidermy. His new Guru, Suleiman, taught him how to do it and made him a very good taxidermist. Natraj’s attic room was full of old newspapers and other junk paper. They were also dusty and bugged. Vasu was rude when, without Natraj’s permission, he brought in four workers to clean the floor and paint the walls white. A few days later, he brought in a bed and some other furniture. The attic room was made bigger and connected to the living room. When his friends 39 came to visit, they made fun of him there (Natraj). What shocked Natraj a lot was Vasu’s mean behavior. But the thought that he wouldn’t be living here forever made him feel better. He was wrong when he thought Vasu wouldn’t stay in the attic for good. Natraj started to think of him as a middle-aged man-eater who upset his calm life. His life was no longer peaceful, whether he was at work or at home. He was a troubled man. There was a time when Vasu brought a forest official to the press who wanted to print his book Golden Thoughts, but the deal never went through. After some time, Vasu got a brown package from the Forest Department. Inside, it said that he could shoot ducks and deer but not tigers or other big animals. Vasu became an enemy of the Forester right away and chose to test his power by killing animals in the Mempi Forest. He began killing animals in the wild without a permit. Very carefully, he did this, leaving no evidence behind. After that, Vasu made Natraj ride in his car with him to Mempi village. He went with Vasu even though he didn’t want to because he was very busy at the time. He was making greeting cards for the daughter of a lawyer’s wedding. He was rushing to get these cards to you on time. Vasu, on the other hand, was mean and took him to his car. Vasu learned at Mempi village that a tiger had left pug marks in the nearby Mempi forest. He was so happy that he left Natraj at a tea shop and left with the person who told him the news. He was like a lost kid because he didn’t have any money to take the bus back. He asked the tea shop owner when the next bus to Malgudi would arrive, and over time, he got along well with him. The owner of the tea stall liked Natraj and offered him tea. When his turn came, he introduced Natraj to the bus conductor and asked him to take him on his bus and receive the fare at his press. Natraj was very grateful to Muthu and made it to Malgudi safely, but it was late at night. That day, it was not possible to make the invitation cards. Vasu happily showed Natraj the tiger he had killed in the Mempi forest when he got back. The tiger was ten feet long, and its head was almost eighteen inches wide. Though he didn’t have permission to kill the animal, he wasn’t ashamed of it at all. In fact, he was happy that he got away from the forest department so they couldn’t sue him. He demonstrated the process of processing and stuffing the dead animals to Natraj in his room. Nathani learned where the smell that everyone was complaining about came from. There were stuffed animal skins all over the room. He wanted to throw him out, but Vasu didn’t care about him and was living a good life. As time went on, he kept bringing dead animals, stuffed 40 and packed them, and sent them to different places by train. Even though his business was doing well, the things he did caused Natraj a lot of trouble. Vasu was too scary for him to talk to directly, and his friends and other people thought that he had rented out his attic to Vasu. One day, Natraj got up the nerve to tell Vasu to leave the attic. Vasu made fun of him for asking for something like that and told him how much it had cost him to make the attic livable. Vasu didn’t care about Natraj’s request, and after five days, Natraj got a notice from the House Rent Controller telling him to show up in court at a certain time and place. He signed the delivery note to show that he got it, but when he read it, he was scared. Natraj hid the summons and didn’t tell anyone about it, but as the time for going to court got closer, he became very upset and sad. He remembered the “adjournment lawyer” all of a sudden and went to see him. The lawyer did not pay for the printing of the welcome cards, but he got Natraj to pay him a lot of money to help him get the case put off and more time given by the court. Both Vasu and Natraj didn’t talk to each other at all. Vasu would always go to the attic. One day, a sanitary inspector came to the press and showed a joint plea from his neighbor to the city government about the bad smell and asking them not to let people clean and stuff skins in that neighborhood. As the inspector believed Natraj to be the tanner, he told him to send a message and ask for time to move his tanning business. The situation put Natraj in a state of complete hopelessness. He had no power and could not do anything. The forester came back after a while and asked for Vasu. That person asked N