Wednesday, 6 July 2016
Sunday, 3 July 2016
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON MULTICULTURAL LITERATURE 6.2 JULY 2016--CONTENTS
Contents
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Portrayal of Man-Woman Pairs
in the Fictional World of D. H. Lawrence: An Analysis
--S. Chelliah
Feminism
and Feminist Literary Theory: A Brief Note
--C.
Ramya
--Syed Mir Hassim & M. Revathi
Violence, Memory and Identity in Indian English Fiction
--Barinder Kumar Sharma
Relevance of Neo-Slave
Narrative Technique in Toni Morrison’s Beloved
--Jaya Singh
‘Mangalamkali’ of Mavilan Tribe:
An Ecocritical Reading
--Lillykutty Abraham & Sr. Marykutty Alex
What do Stories Look Like: Cover Matters in Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide
--Pothapragada Sasi Ratnaker
Beyond the
Contours of Shame: Female Body and Experience in Nawal El-Saadawi’s “The
Picture”
--Shaista Taskeen & Syed Wahaj
Mohsin
“Quidditch”- A Game of Life: An In-depth Insight into J. K. Rowling’s Harry
Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone
--C.
Veeralakshmi & C. Gangalakshmi
Individual
vs. Society: A Thematic Study of K. V. Ragupathi’s The Invalid
--S. Vishnupriya
REVIEW ARTICLE
A
Critical Appraisal of S. Kumaran’s, (ed.)
Philosophical Musings for a Meaningful Life: An Analysis of K. V. Dominic’s
Poems
--Patricia Prime
BOOK REVIEWS
Smita Das’s (ed.) Ramesh
K. Shrivastava: Man and His Works
--Anisha Ghosh Pal
Ramesh
Chandra Mukhopadhyaya’s Interpretation
of Write My Son, Write: An Exercise
in Close Reading
--Mahboobeh Khaleghi
T. V. Reddy’s Golden Veil: A Collection of Poems
--Patricia Prime
GENERAL ESSAYS
Multiculturalism in India: A Wonder to the World
--K. V. Dominic
Parnassus As I see it
--Manas
Bakshi
Poets as Visionaries
--Rob Harle
Sab Pass Policy
--Kaptan Singh
ESPLICATION
OF POETRY
Explication of K. V. Dominic’s “Parental Duty”
--Ramesh Chandra
Mukhopadhyaya
SHORT
STORIES
Together We Live
--Ramesh K. Srivastava
Just a Human
Being
--Roswitha Joshi
POETRY
The Digging
--Bimal Guha (Trans. Prof. Kabir Chowdhury)
Ravens
--Bimal Guha (Trans. Prof. Kabir Chowdhury)
We stay hugging this earth
--Bimal Guha (Trans. Prof. Kabir Chowdhury)
The Eternal Truth
--Manas Bakshi
Parnassus of Revival
--Manas Bakshi
World Cup Opening
--Mark Pirie
Prince Harry’s Visit
--Mark Pirie
Hand-in-Hand
--Nandini Sahu
Ritual
--Nandini Sahu
Lines to My Son
--Nandini Sahu
Night
Musings
--Patricia Prime
This
Place Called Home
--Patricia Prime
In
Memory (For Glenys)
--Patricia Prime
Storm
Wrack
--Patricia Prime
-- Mai Văn Phấn (Trans. Nhat-Lang Le)
The Soul Flew Away...
--Mai Văn Phấn (Trans. Nhat-Lang Le)
--Mai Văn Phấn (Trans. Nhat-Lang Le)
Eco-feminism
--Saji Krishna Pillai
Transcend…end…end…endal
Love
--Saji Krishna Pillai
To my coy
mistress
--Saji Krishna Pillai
Life
--Saroj Bala
Beginning
--Saroj Bala
No One Questions
--Shaista Taskeen
Fifty Minutes from New Delhi
--Sweta Srivastava Vikram
Contributors
Friday, 1 April 2016
Multiculturalism in India: A Wonder to the World
Multiculturalism
in India: A Wonder to the World
K.
V. Dominic
(paper presented at K L University, Vijayawada, A.P. India on 29th March 2016 which won great applause from the entire enlightened audience)
The concept of multiculturalism originated in the
1970s and was used in Canada for the first time to tackle the problem of
immigrants. Then it spread to other countries like Australia, USA, UK and some
countries in the European Union where immigrants of different countries of the
world lived and settled. Since assimilation and homogenization failed, multiculturalism
has become inevitable and thus the governments adopted it as an official, political
policy.
Multiculturalism is defined as the state of
co-existence of diverse cultures. Culture includes, racial, religious,
linguistic, etc. which may have differences and distinctions in customary
behaviours, cultural assumptions and values, patterns of thinking and
communicative styles. It also aims at the preservation of different cultures
and their identities within a unified society as a state or nation.
‘Multiculturalism’ is now used not only to
define disadvantaged and maginalised groups like tribals,
linguistic-cultural-religious minorities, LGBT, disabled, etc., but also
immigrants who may come under ethnic, religious minorities as well as minority
nations and indigenous peoples.
Multiculturalism
is applied by the government, philosophers, politicians, writers, critics and
scholars for human society alone, but to me it includes non-human beings,
plants and the planet itself. As we say that human beings in a society or
nation should live as members of a family irrespective of their race, religion,
caste, language or gender, it is necessary that we should live in harmony with
other beings, both animals and plants. To me this universe is a big concert or
symphony, a harmony of diverse notes. All creations play their role in
concordance, but man tries to play discordant notes--stands against the
rhythmic flow of the system. Let me quote a few lines from my poem
“Multicultural Harmony” published in my poetry book Multicultural Symphony:
Multiplicity
and diversity
essence
of universe
From
atom to the heavens
multiculturalism
reigns
This
unity in diversity
makes
beauty of universe. (Dominic, Multicultural
Symphony 15)
As man is the
latest evolutionary being, he should respect other beings and plants which have
greater legacy to claim in this universe. Human beings can’t live independent
of non-human beings or plants. Hence when we try to eliminate or destroy
non-human beings and plants we are eliminating ourselves from this planet. Let
me quote again from “Multicultural Harmony”:
You
may live here
Let
other things also live
Since
you are selfish and greedy
you
take more than
what
is due to you
Other
beings struggle for necessities
whereas
you are after
comforts
and luxuries
You
become rich
pushing
hundreds of your neighbours
to
the abyss of starvation.
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
your
greed for delicacies
extinguishes
other beings
Your
greed for luxurious shelters
exterminates
trees and forests
Your
construction mania
defiles
the sky and
topples
the climate
You
turn your villages to towns
and
become more and more civilized
but
less and less cultured
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Your
indiscriminate felling of trees
chased
away all birds
Many
have become extinct now
In
place of cuckoos and nightingale
which
lulled you to sleep
mosquitoes
disturb your slumber
through
injections and drone. (Dominic, Multicultural
Symphony 20-22)
Now coming to the second part of my paper—Multiculturalism
in India. India is the best
example of multicultural society where people speak 122 major languages and
1599 other languages. Unity in diversity is the beauty of India and the Indian
Constitution assigns equal rights, privileges and duties to all people
irrespective of gender, caste, class, community, language and religion. The Indian society has been multi-cultural,
multi-religious, multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic from time
immemorial. At the same time our country has been confronted with forces of divisiveness.
Hence the biggest challenge before major multicultural countries like India is
to preserve the pluralistic tradition and to bring the various communities into
the mainstream society by promoting the spirit of multiculturalism.
Unlike multicultural nations like
Canada, Australia, USA, UK and European Union countries, where people of
different cultures look very much like in their physical size and facial
features, dress, language, food habits, religious practices, way of life etc.,
people of India show clear distinctions in their physique, dress, language,
food habits, religious practices and rituals. This unique unity of India in the
midst of multicultural diversity and enjoying unlimited freedom as the largest
democracy in the world is the beauty of India which is a wonder to the world. But
as we see around us now there are real tests for our multiculturalism.
Threat
to multiculturalism comes when a group starts thinking in a narrow way,
considering themselves as superiors to others and show discrimination and
animosity to other groups. In fact can any group—racial, religious or
linguistic—claim to be original or chaste? I have dealt with it in me poem “Multicultural
Harmony”:
Dear
my fellow beings
you
boast of your culture
you
boast of your language
Is
there any culture
which
is not hybrid?
Is
there any language
which
is not mixed?
How
many millions have been killed
in
the name of culture?
Look
into the pages of history
Most
of the wars have been waged
for
the supremacy of culture
Conquest
of cultures over cultures
amalgamated
to multicultural world
How
much Indian is an Indian?
None
can give any answer
Same
who boasts of any nationality. (Dominic, Multicultural
Symphony 22)
Considering the
multicultural society of our country, the Indian Constitution has included
innumerable Acts by which the marginalized sections of the country are given
sufficient protection and special privileges. Thus the scheduled tribes and
castes and other backward communities get reservation in education as well as
employment. Strangely enough only 25% of the Indian population is in the
forward communities. In addition to these reservations two major minority
religious sections—Muslims and Sikhs enjoy special rights in our country. Even
though absence of common civil code creates some problems the government of
India ensures that each religion and its customs are protected in the society.
When we analyse the
recent religious and communal trends in our country we are greatly alarmed to
find that people give undue importance to their religious beliefs and rituals.
National feelings and patriotism are being devoured by the monster of religion.
The present generation seems to forget the fact they are citizens of the
country—the land which gave them birth and sustain and protect till they go
back to the very same land. Thus national feelings and affiliation shall be
uppermost of all other narrow feelings of religion, community, language, region
etc. Just imagine that when we are comfortably sitting here and sleeping well
in our houses without any fear, millions of solders are patrolling on our
borders fighting with extreme climate and even risking their lives to keep us
all safe. Haven’t you recently read of the tragic news of ten Indian soldiers
killed by huge avalanche at Siachen? These
thoughts are sufficient enough to make us patriotic and loyal to our country.
Language plays a
prominent role in multicultural unity. Languages
are the special gifts of man which make him distinct from other animals. They
are manna from heaven and, people, irrespective of space and narrowness of
nation, are permitted to use them as they like. We become more learned and wise
as we learn more and more languages. There is a
tendency among our vernacular writers to boast of their language and
literature. True, we should be proud of our mother tongue and promote it at any
cost. At the same time India being a multicultural, multi-lingual country we
should respect other languages and their literature. Very often vernacular
writers complain that existence and use of English is a hindrance for the
growth of regional languages. Such an antagonistic attitude to English is never
fair as English is the only lingua franca which knits all Indians together. Of
course Hindi is our national language but its function is less in the South.
It’s only through English we can communicate to the world. English is never a
foreign language now, and Indian literature in English is accepted as one of
the literatures of our country. Hence rather than censoring or attacking
English we should promote it and try to get maximum number of regional
literature books translated into English and thus disseminate Indian ethos and
culture to the entire world.
In
fact this world is like a tightly knit nuclear family. As Maha Upanishad says, 'Only small men discriminate. . . . For those who
live magnanimously the entire world constitutes but a family' (“Vasudaiva Kutumbakam”). The multicultural unity of the world should
ultimately lead to the concept of Vasudaiva
Kutumbamkam which means that the world is
certainly one family. Hence the goal of every country and people in this world
should be to live as a member of this big family. Let me wind up my paper
quoting once again from the last section of my poem “Multicultural Harmony”:
Dear
my fellow beings
break
away all fences and walls
Fences
of your petty minds
Compound
walls of your houses
Walls
of your religions and castes
Boundaries
of your native States
And
ultimately borders of your nations
Let
there be no India, Pakistan or China
America,
Africa, Europe or Australia
But
only one nation THE WORLD
where
every being lives in perfect harmony
as
one entity in multicultural world.
(Dominic, Multicultural Symphony
22-23)
Works Cited
Dominic, K. V. Multicultural Symphony.
New Delhi: Gnosis, 2014. Print.
“Vasudaiva
Kutumbakam.” Web. 15 Dec. 2014. http://www.enlightenedleadershipnow.com/Home/power-of-unity-or-oneness/what-is-spiritual-leadership/vasudhaiva-kutumbakam-vasudhaiva-kutumbakam.
Saturday, 12 March 2016
CONTENTS OF WRITERS EDITORS CRITICS (WEC) 6.1 MARCH 2016
Contents
Feedback of WEC 5.2 September 2015
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Expression of
Motherhood in Shashi Deshpande’s A Matter
of Time
--Anita Sharma & Vishal Kumar
Manju
Kapur’s Difficult Daughters: A
Deconstructive Feminist Reading
G. Baskaran
“Women can Make
and Women can Break”: Dalit Feminism in India through Select Texts and Contexts
--Jaydeep Sarangi
The Search of the
Past in Bharati Mukherjee’s Leave It To
Me
--Shubha Mukherjee
Worldview of Interconnectedness in the Songs Mavilan Tribe
--Lillykutty Abraham
Redefining the
Spiritual and Ethical Harmony of a Human Being through GB Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra
--Md. Afrozuddin
Marital Dissension
in the Novels of Manju Kapur
--Nirjharini Tripathy
Violent
Relationship of Shashi Deshpande’s Male Characters with Female Characters
--A. Padmavathy
The
Unheard Symphony: A Reaction against Blatant Sexism in Alice Munro’s “Boys and
Girls”
--Syed Mir Hassim
Multi-dimensional
Vignette in the Poetry of K. V. Dominic
--Manas Bakshi
Treatment of
Colourism in Toni Morrison’s God Help the
Child: A Gynocritical Perspective
--Sebin
Justine
Patriarchal Elements in the Feminine Desire in Song of Songs
--Nisha K.
Thomas
Exploring Trauma
and Representing the Voiceless: A Critical Study of the Selected Poems of
Jayanta Mahapatra
--Sibasis Jana
Cultural Materialism in the Selected Short Stories of K. V. Dominic: A Critique
--S. Barathi
REVIEW
ARTICLES
T. V. Reddy’s Minor
Gods as a Chronicle of Rural Life
--Joshua Horton
Depiction of Anger in
Poetry: An Analysis of Vijay Vishal’s Anger in Contemporary Indian English Poetry
Live Life with Hopes and It Turns a Blessing, Tells Whispers in the Wilderness
--P C K Prem
Poetess
Mary John Thottam: Her Life & Poems
--Fr Varghese Paul, SJ
BOOK REVIEWS
Smita
Das’s (ed.) Ramesh K. Srivastava: Man and his Work (A Collection of Critical Essays)
-- Alka Rani Purwar
Nalini Sharma’s The Strange Equations
--S. Barathi
K. V. Dominic’s Who
is Responsible? (A Collection of Short Stories)
--Patricia Prime
REPORT
Rendezcussion on Michael
Madhusudan Datta
--Bhaskar Roy Barman
SHORT STORIES
The Price of a
Vote
--Chandramoni Narayanaswamy
The Photograph
--Jayanti M Dalal (Trans. Rajshree Parthivv Trivedi)
You are a Flop--a Miserable Flop
--Nalini Sharma
A Dumb Show of
Lovers
--Ramesh K. Srivastava
Spinning the Thread of Life
--Jaydeep
Sarangi
POEMS
Tribute to Siachen Martyrs
K. V. Dominic
Spring Flies Too Soon
O. P. Arora
You Buy His Tunes
O. P. Arora
Living in Patterns
P C K Prem
Imagination
Bhaskar Roy Barman
Mulberries off the Mulberry
Jairam Seshadri
Winter’s
Pickings
Jairam Seshadri
Left
over
Manas Bakshi
If,
At All, Kolkata Could be
Manas Bakshi
I am a Cop’s Wife
Nalini Sharma
Prisoner of War
Nalini Sharma
O! Divine Mother
Ram Sharma
Ram Sharma
Ode to the
Farmers...
Sibasis Jana
Green Philosophy
Sibasis
Jana
Eliminate
Pangs from Globe
Sugandha Agarwal
The
Crucifixion
Talluri Mathew Bhaskar
True Religion
Vijay Kumar Roy
The Creator is One
Vijay Kumar Roy
Our Esteemed Contributors
Monday, 22 February 2016
Authorspress: Author’s Press in True Spirit & Sense
Authorspress:
Author’s Press in True Spirit & Sense
Dr. K. V.
Dominic
The generosity of vision, and acumen, abundance and spontaneous
flow of academic and human interest are making the publishing house Authorspress,
New Delhi greater and greater in its professionalism. It is doing the job with amazing
knack and brilliance. Its messianic voice is a fountain of inspiration for both
the budding and the established writers. It skillfully maintains the synchronization
between pecuniary and cerebral tug of war.
The clans of publishers have propagated so
rapidly during the last few decades that authentic and meticulous ones have
often been put in the shade, and even thrown out. In view of this fact Authorspress
has been doing wonderfully in publishing quality books of all kinds with superb
editorial work, scrupulous scrutiny of the manuscript, meticulous proofreading,
and yet without disregarding the aesthetic and artistic face. Its website is an
excellent medium which enhances its stature and at the same time enables the
authors, critics and readers to obtain books of their choice effortlessly. The
growing stature of a publisher always lends respectability to its authors
making it like an oasis in the vast desert around us. The books bearing this
publishing house's insignia had an automatic acknowledgment as an author of importance.
The publishing house is different in its entrepreneurship and the
person holding and running the press himself is a great human being, scholar
and academician. His integrity and commitment is par excellence. The publisher
showcases wonderful quality books to its credit in scholarly, creative and
academic arena. The cover and quality of the book have been fetching praise and
compliments not only from all across India but also from readers in the US,
UAE, UK and other countries. Its books and journals are packed immaculately
well, printed in absolute perfection, the page texture is more than what work
deserved. Who can better bear the testimonial of these facts other than an
author whose twenty books have so far been published by Authorspress:
1.
Who Is
Responsible? (A Collection of Short Stories)
2.
Multicultural
Studies on Three Nobel Laureates: Rabindranath Tagore, Toni Morrison &
Alice Munro
3.
Abheepsa:
Kavita Sangrah
4.
Indian
Literatures in English: New Directions Newer Possibilities
5.
Multicultural
Symphony (A Collection of Poems)
6.
Jayanti M.
Dalal: Select Stories
7.
African and
Afro-American Literature: Insights and Interpretations
8.
Changing
Face of Women in Literature: The Flaming Spirit
9.
Critical Perspectives
on the Poetry of R. K. Singh, D. C. Chambial and I. K. Sharma
10.
Multicultural
Consciousness in the Novels of R. K. Narayan
11.
Critical
Evaluation of Contemporary Indian Poetry in English
12.
Concepts and
Contexts of Diasporic Literature of India
13.
Discourses
on Five Indian Poets in English: Keki N. Daruwalla, Shiv K. Kumar, Pronab Kumar
Majumder, Syed Ameeruddin and Aju Mukhopadhyay
14.
Studies on
Six Indian Poets in English: Jayanta Mahapatra, Hazara Singh, P C K Prem, Gopikrishnan
Kottoor, Manas Bakshi, Chandramoni Narayanaswamy
15.
Sarojini
Sahoo’s Feminine Reflections
16.
Write Son,
Write (A Collection of Poems)
17.
Stephen
Gill’s Poetry: A Panorama World Peace
18.
Winged
Reason (A Collection of Poems)
19.
Discourses
on Contemporary Indian English Poets
20.
Postcolonial
Readings in Indo-Anglian Literature
It knows well how to give room to the author and present the book
in a suitable set-up. What makes it different from other publishers is its
immensity and the way it handles the quality. The title, subtitle and cover
design reflect and suggest the best one to make it reveal the content well.
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