MEG-7 Block-6 - Short story UNIT 1 ABOUT THE SHORT STORY
MEG-7 Block-6 - Short story
UNIT 1 ABOUT THE SHORT STORY
History of Short stories
The oldest known tales are said to be of the Shipwrecked Sailor written on Egyptian Papyri (about 400 B.C) or the Book ofJonah from the Old Testament (350-750 B.C). The earliest written stories seem to be The Thousand and One Nights or the Arabian Nights Entertainments, written originally in Arabic
The Indian writer shares at least three of Maupassant's intrinsic traits -uninterrupted narration, preservation of curiosity, and the resulting clear picture of life.
The first Hindi short story for example, is said to be Dulai Vali(1907), though some critics consider Rani Ketaki Ki Kahani (1800-1810) to be the first Hindi story.
The history of the Indian -English short story began towards the close of the nineteenth century with the publication of Kamala Satthianadan's Stories from Indian Christian Life in 1898.
Writing for social causes - Manjeri Isvaran, R.K.Narayan, Raja Rao, Khushwant Singh and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
WHAT IS A SHORT STORY?
A broad analysis of a short story signifies three characteristic elements:
1. Recognition of the familiar - vivid details to create the illusion of reality and actuality, of course, suggesting undercurrents of meaning. Though familiar, the writer has to rid it of any kind of banality, cliche or formula. A short story is, after all, not a transcription of life but a dramatization of it.
2. Empathy: Identifying ourselves so sympathetically and closely with the characters and situations as to feel a part of this actuality - the well worn theme thus gets vivified by being individualized and
3. Readability: The good yam pleasure tale - being absorbed by the fascination of the tale, we are unable to put it down until we have found out what happened. Of course, beyond the yam lies a whole range of meaning to be explored.
BASIC ELEMENTS OF A SHORT STORY
plot or structure -
a plot is not a simple narrative account. A plot is constructed. A plot is composed. E.M.Forster made the distinction between a simple narrative account and plot very clear when he said,
"The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then the queen died of grief. - is a plot.
"The various stages in terms of plot are
1) exposition
2) complication
3) climax and
4) denouement.
a unity of effect - a "single effect"
Characterisation -
E.M.Forster classified the characters as "flat" and "round". Flat characters stand for an idea, an attitude, a point of view. They don't grow at all in the course of the story. They become static or stereotypes. Round characters, on the other hand, go through any inconsistencies, anxieties, contradictions, etc. revealing new facets of their personality each time they deal with a new situation. They are dynamic. Flat or stock characters are often used to act as a contrast, or foil to the round characters.
Not all characters are treated equally - a clear understanding of their relative importance in the story will help us develop a proper perspective. A writer can present his characters in two ways - by telling or by showing. If a lie tells us about a character directly, his method of characterization is expository. If he allows his characters to be revealed indirectly through thought, dialogue and action. it is dramatic. Most writers use a combination of the two to bring their characters to life
Atmosphere - Atmosphere establishes lifelikeness and wins the reader's willingness to accept the world created by the storyteller. It creates the mood as well as the psychological and physical effects essential to the theme of the story
Narrative Techniques -
The first person. This ensures intimacy and immediacy - making it easier for the reader to identify with the characters. The third person narrative, on the other hand, gives the author greater freedom to move back and forth, and act as an omniscient presence. A story in the first person is supposed to emphasize subjective reality at the expense of objective reality much more than a story in the third person. In the third person narrative the author can draw back from the main character at any time and tell us things that the character cannot know or does not understand.
So, "the first person point of view adds credibility, immediacy and life likeness to the story. The author seems to disappear, leaving the reader in the hands of the narrator. The effect is that the reader comes so close to the action that he begins to share the character's perception of the world. The reader begins to so completely identify with the narrator's vision that he abandons his own critical intelligence and escapes into the character's life. Some readers assume that the first person narrator and the author always share similar moral perspectives, when in fact the narrator's may be radically different from his creator. A narrator's perception of an experience may be limited, one-sided or even biased. The reader may know much more about the significance of the narrator's actions and thoughts than does the narrator himself. A first person narrator is only a character in the story, not necessarily a spokesman for the author.
Figurative Language -
Writers have a way of using words to convey more than they do on the surface - beyond their literal meanings. Such a use of words is generally called figurative language. Some of the common figures of speech are simile, metaphor personification, symbol, imagery, irony, paradox, satire, antithesis, allegory, euphemism, hyperbole, eulogy, understatement.
Point of View -
Happenings in stories may look lifelike and historically accurate, at the same time they are strongly marked by the authors' feelings about what happens, by their conviction that the essential reality of things is created by what people feel about them. The significant reality is in the hearts of people, hence the emphasis in these stories is on how and what the authors feel about what Happens because what ultimately counts is not the events themselves but what we feel about them.
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UNIT 2 R.K.NARAYAN
Ignou books- http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/22853/1/Unit-2.pdf
while analysing a story are:
a. Structure - the form plays a decisive role in making it interesting
b. Setting and environment - the authenticity of atmosphere is an essential ingredient of a successful short story.
c. Characterisation - choice and development of characters within the constraints imposed by the form.
d. Meaning - author's message and comment, if any, should be inherent in the design and structure
R.K. Narayan's stories -An Astrologer's and Engine Trouble.
RK. Narayan (1907-2001) - - more than 10 novels and 6 collections of short stories - His first novel Swami and Friends (1935)
Novels:
Swami and Friends (1935) The Bachelor ofArts (1 937) The Dark Room ( 1 93 8) The English Teacher ( 1945) Mr. Sumpath (1 949) The Financial Expert (1 952) Waiting for the Mahatma (1955) The Guide (1958) the Man-Eater Malgudi (1 962) The Sweet - Vendor (1 967)
Collections of short stories -
Malgudi Days (1 94 1) Dodu and other stories ( 1943) Cyclone and other stories ( 1944) + An Astrologer 's Day and other stories (1 947) Lawley Road and other stories (1956) A Horse and Tcco Goats (1970)
Others -
Next Sunday (1956, Sketches and Essays) Mj Dateless Diay (1960, an account of his journey to America) Gods, Demons and Ol/zers (1965, a retelling of some classical myths)
AN ASTROLOGER 'S DAY-
Read here- https://syllableblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/an-astrologers-day-text.pdf
Astrologer, Guru Nayak and the twist. Irony & satire.
"there are no good or bad characters in Narayan's works. Human nature is presented voraciously and interestingly and memorably and there is no overt condemnation or praise."
ENGINE TROUBLE
Read here - https://www.thefreshreads.com/engine-trouble/
'Engine Trouble' is taken from the collection An Astrologer's Day (1947).There is an element of autobiography here in that Narayan has been terrified of Arithmetic in real life and this reflects his incapacity to handle machines. Narayan failed several times in Intermediate and Degree examinations and could not graduate till he was 24. He is inept with mechanical contrivances, electrical gadgets and the camera -- almost anything requiring the use of hands.
: ''In both these stories the pattern is cyclic: a man stands outside a whirlpool of events and commitments and is drawn into it by ambition, by falling in and out of love or by accident. He is swept round with the current and thrown out of the whirlpool, having achieved nothing returning to the point where he began".6 Both these stories have a dramatic twist -- human beings pitted against social andlor non-human forces but the dilemma is resolved at the end. The astrologer lives happily hereafter knowing full well that Guru Nayak will not leave his village ever again and the Talkative Man will get back to the business of living with the road engine safe inside the well and the mouth of the well neatly cemented up.
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UNIT 3 ARUN JOSHI AND MANOJ DAS
Ignou book - http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/22854/1/Unit-3.pdf
ARUN JOSHI-
Arun Joshi (1939-1993) was educated in India and the U.S.A. Arun Joshi shifted his focus from social realism to psychological realism
Works-
The Foreigner (1968) The Strange case of Billy Biswas (197 1) The Apprentice ( 1 974) The Last Labyrinth ( 1 98 I) Survivor (1 975, short stories)
THE ONLY AMERICAN FROM OUR VILLAGE
Read here- http://englishpuff.blogspot.com/2014/05/text-of-only-american-from-our-village.html
In this story Arun Joshi brings about the predicament of a diaspora and his subsequent mental agony. Like a typical Indian father Kundan Lal was proud of liis son, telling everyone what all the son had done, getting angry if one was not interested in the son's achievements. Dr.Khanna, the most outstanding immigrant physicist at the University of Wisconsin decides to visit India with wife Joanne and two sons, fifteen years after he had left it. Ashtamp Farosh tells Dr.Khanna how much his father longed to go to America to spend time with his son and what a tragic end he brought upon himself once forced into sad realisation that his eminent son could spare no time or emotion even for his ailing father. Radhey Mohan, the narrator, forces a complacent and smug Dr.Khanna to hear of his father's woes and travails. And thereby fills him with remorse and repentance. Can he be seen as his father's alter ego? Some trick of the old man, a slant of the lips, a glint in the eye, the accent -- all these reminded him of his father and made him uncomfortable. Had he been alive today, Kundan Lal too might have worn a greasy jacket with eyes heavy with cataract, with no one to look after hirnf'And during the course of their conversation Dr.Khanna had the unreasonable feeling that the old man was going to slap him His story concluded, the ashtamp farosh disappeared shuffling through the dark. Dr.Khanna however, could not be his confident, carefree self again. He had done nothing but stared at his feet thereafter. And he told a psychiatrist that he had periods of great burning in his feet. His output of research had been zero ever since he came back.
MANOJ DAS - AN INTRODUCTION
Manoj Das was born in Balasore, Orissa, in 1934. A Professor of English at Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry, he also edited for years the now defunct monthly The Heritage. he has written children's tales and fables, and a booklet on Sri Aurobindo. He writes both in English and Oriya.
A Bride Inside a Casket and Other Tales. Man who Lifted the Mountain and other Fantasies, The Submerged Valley and Other Stories and Cyclones (a novel) are his better-known works.
His first book, Satabdira Artanada, in Oriya, was published in 1948. At the age of 15 he had launched the monthly Diganta, a reputed Oriya magazine. A recipient of the Sarala Award, Orissa Sahitya Akademi Award and Central Sahitya Akademi Award and Saraswati Samman,
A TRIP INTO THE JUNGLE
A Trip into the Jungle was originally published as The Jungle in The Illustrated Weekly-of India in 1971.
A group of five - Raja Sahib, Mr. and Mrs. Mity and, Mr. and Mrs. Chakodi - went to the jungle, to turn primitive for a night as men and women must have been a million years ago, to gorge, to romp and to be violent. Mr.Chakodi, who claimed to be an authority on the benefit of such occasional explosion of passions had lectured before Arun Joshi and they began drinking on the philosophy of such deliberate relapses. Manoj Das Raja Sahib had arranged the outing and had spruced up his almost abandoned bungalow inside the jungle for his guests. They were driven here in the jeep by Shyamal, Raja Sahib's handsome half-brother, one of the numerous illegitimate children of the late Raja but quite low in status as his mother had not been a regularized concubine. While they all went out hunting, after a round of light refreshment and drink, Shyamal declined to accompany them. Despite Raja Sahib's threats. Mrs.Mity stays back too, ostensibly to get over the disappointment of losing the deer on the way. Once left alone, Mrs.Mitty managed to fall into Shyamal's arms and made him play her game of flesh. He obeyed and obliged her. Stung by the smile of irony dancing on his lips all through and to shatter Mrs.Chakodi's suspicions she concocted an alleged assault by Shyamal, now sound asleep in a corner of the hall, as soon as the party returned. Predictably they all marched towards the sleeping chauffeur and began to kick him frantically. All except Mrs. Mitty. Amidst their wild blows and kicks Shyamal swooned away and was dragged into a small room where they had just deposited a half-dead boar. Then they retired into the high-walled kitchen garden, made a fire, sat around it and drank. And then dancing around the fire they cut out and ate slices from the boar, which they had thrown into the fire half alive. Long into the night they ate half-roasted slices from it and sang and danced. But the next morning when the watchman's knocks wake them up and Raja Sahib advances towards the room into which Shyamal had been thrown last evening so that tea can be arranged, Mrs. Mity stops him half-way. Suppose he opens the door and finds the boar instead of Shyamal there? But didn't they roast and eat up the boar last night? But suppose they see the boar instead of Shyamal in the room? Two hours later they return, Mr.Mity driving the jeep. They didn't look into the room, after all. Bringing Shyamal back is none of their responsibility. He is only a chauffeur, after all. But the suspicion that in their drunken stupor they might indeed have roasted and eaten up the badly thrashed Shyamal instead of the boar sends shivers down our spine.
Mrs. Mity is a bundle of hypocrisy and pretense. When an injured butterfly got crushed under a wheel of their jeep she gave a shriek, her face all butter with pity. Mr.Chakodi used the moment to sympathise with her but actually tried to come as close to the buttery face as possible. Mrs. Mity calls him a snob who snores as a pig grunts. The same kind-hearted Mrs. Mity accuses Shyamal of impudence and vulgarity when he refuses to shoot a pregnant deer. Shyamal had his barrel pointed right at the head of the deer. But didn't shoot. And to the five pairs of venom-spitting eyes he explained that the deer was pregnant. But it means nothing to Mrs. Mity - the same Mrs. Mity who had shrieked when an injured butterfly got crushed under a wheel of the jeep. She can't forgive Shyamal for his impudence. Deep anger and frustration clog her voice. She is again on the verge of a breakdown. Not because a pregnant deer was The Short Story about to be killed but because the impudent chauffeur didn't shoot the deer despite clear orders to do so, pregnancy or no pregnancy. So much for her delicate concern for the butterflies and beasts! She sat beside Shyamal, the impudent young man who seemed not to care two hoots for their sentiments. Inside the bungalow she manipulates to be left behind with Shyamal. Manipulates to fall into his arms. Manipulates her game of flesh. She has no qualms about telling lies. To punish Shyamal for his ironic smile and to set at rest any suspicions Mrs. Chakodi might have nursed on this account, she concocts an alleged assault and has the unsuspecting, sleeping Shyarnal brutally bashed and kicked. She herself stands afar - and laughs hysterically. A woman devoid of any morals, any conscience. The trouble is all of them are the same -total moral degeneration has left them hollow.
open-ended story. The narrative is quite straight-forward.
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UNIT 4 SUBHADRA SEN GUPTA & RAJI NARASIMHAN
IGNOU book- http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/22855/1/Unit-4.pdf
These are problem-based stories. Characterisation is not as important here as the problems stated. The main concern of the authors is to make the readers conscious of the prevalent social ills and their ethicalJpersona1 dimensions.
SUBHADRA SENGUPTA - AN INTRODUCTION
Subhadra Sengupta was born in 1952 and received a Master of Arts in History from Delhi University. She has been writing regularly since 1976. and her first collection of short stories titled Good Girls are Bad News was published by Rupa in 1992. She also writes fiction for children. The Children's books are Good Times at Islamganj (1982), The Mussoorie Mystery (1986), and Bishnu, the Dhobi Singer Subhadra Sen (1996) and its sequel Bishnu Sings again (1998) set in the court of the Mughal Gupta and Raji Narasimhan emperor Akbar, History Mystery Dal and Biryani (2000). She has also written a non fiction book Devalya, Great Temples of India (2000).
THE FOURTH DAUGHTER
"A mother refusing to feed her newborn child. It was something Parvati Bai had never heard of before". - Nor had we. So much is said and made of a mother's love for her children that no one can believe it, no one can imagine it happening under any circumstances. Well under certain circumstances it may happen. If it is a daughter, if it is a fourth daughter. It does not matter that the parents and the grandparents are affluent. They too need a son. Perhaps more than the common people. Because they need an heir to inherit and take care of their vast empire. The family mansion and the jewellery shop of Seth Bhagwan Das in this case. And the logic is simple. If there is no son to cany on the line. their money would be scattered among relatives. Surely that's a thought no one could possibly bear. But refusing to feed her own child? Rejecting the child just because she is a daughter? Abandoning the famished crying child just because she is the fourth daughter? Affluence should bring generosity, here it only brings cruelty.
Therefore, Mini, the fourth girl, began her life by nearly dying. If there is a God, then he sent her into the world with every disadvantage he could think of. Her mother was fair and exquisitely beautiful. But Mini was born with her father's dark skin and plain looks. If she had been a cuddly, pretty baby, maybe her mother would have relented. But for the mother of four unwelcome daughters there was nothing to warm up to in the thin, dark squatting baby with huge accusing eyes. And so Mini, the unwelcome fourth daughter, survived because Parvati, the maid and family driver's wife took her up to the room over the garage, carrying a bowl of milk from the kitchen, while her teenage son went running to the market to get a feeding bottle. And Mini continued to live because Parvati, the maid, hunted through her trunk for her children's old clothes and put them on her. Mini survived because whenever she fell ill Parvati's husband would rush to get a doctor. Mini learnt to smile when he got her a rattle. And she learnt to love because Parvati's son carried her around with him like a favourite toy and paced up and down with her in his arms when she cried at night. So Mini grew up in a misty place between the garage room and the big house. No one ever kept her away from the house but instinctively she knew it was not her home. Her three sisters tolerantly allowed her to play with them but at meal times she would sit beside Parvati in the kitchen to eat. And at night she would follow Parvati up to the room above the garage. And all this while her own mother, the mother who had given her birth, lived on the first floor in perfect comfort and luxury. Who says blood is thicker than water? Radha never felt anything for this child of hers, not even when Parvati told her one. fine morning that Munia had said her first word and that it was 'Ma'. But even this failed to touch Radha's heart. And Mini's fault? She was being punished for being a daughter, for being a fourth daughter. As if it was her doing. As if she could have altered it. Well, this is the fate that awaits hundreds and thousands of girl children in our country. Unwanted. Unwelcome. Neglected. Spumed. Sweets are freely distributed on the birth of a son. Sweets and greetings and smiles. But tears and silence and perhaps consolation (even condolences) await the birth of a daughter. At least Mini Was lucky to have Parvati and her husband for Amma and Babuji. And Parvati's son was her beloved Bhaiya. Most other girl children don't have even that compensation. The irony is that her parents and grandparents were rich enough to afford a large family, to afford the education and upkeep of four daughters, to afford even their dowry. Instead they choose to abandon this fourth daughter. Three are bad enough. And Parvati, the maid, without means, without money, decides to bring the child up as her own. The child can't possibly be allowed to die.
. Mini's sisters go to a local government school in a rickshaw but their brother, their only brother, will go to a convent school in the car. And they are grateful that they are at least being educated.
Radha's rejection of her only intensified with time. Mini's defiance only deepened it. Her brains became her weapon of defence and she topped among girls in the school leaving exams. Press reporters came to interview her and photographers clicked her pictures. But when she announced that she planned to study medicine, her real parents ordered her to stay at home and learn to cook and sew until a suitable boy was found for her. Mini tried to argue in vain, "Suppose your son had done well would you ask him to stay at home?Radha's attitude was dismissive, as usual, "You're not my son". Mini persisted, "I've got a scholarship. You don't have to pay for anything." Even this failed to thaw Radha's stony heart, 'No daughter of mine will.. ."
The characters thus are either too good or too bad. And they remain static more or less. They represent an attitude, a rigid standpoint that the author wishes to discuss, disapprove and finally discard.
RAJI NARASIMHAN - AN INTRODUCTION
Raji Narasimhan was born in Madras, Tamil Nadu, in 1930. After her graduation she worked as a reporter and feature writer for The Indian Express. She left her job in the early '-70s to take up full-time creative writing. In addition, she has been regularly . reviewing books and writing critical articles for The Hindustan Times-and Indian Literature. IJer publications include four novels: The Heart ofStanding is You cannot Fly (1973), Forever Free (1979), Drifting to a Dawn (1983), and The Sky Changes (1991). The Marriage of Bela and Other Stories (1978) is a collection of her short stories. Her book of criticism, Sensibility Under Stress: Aspects oflndo-English-Fiction (1976)
A TOAST TO HERSELF
'A Toast to Herself was first published in Indian Literature in 1986.
This story is about a writer. Priya's fifth book has just been published. She is
expecting a review of it in the papers. Joshi of the Herald has told her he'll be
publishing it soon. She is anxious and nervous. What if the review is bad? The fear is
close and biting like a mask. One might argue that it should not matter to a committed
writers like her. What is a review? Just words. "Will you stop writing if this review
doesn't appear?' She asks herself sternly and hears herself whine, "Yes, I might."
Can one earn one's livelihood by writing in India? The answer apparently is no. Especially if it is not popular reading. Her writing brings Priya pebbles. Her mother tries very hard and persistently to make Priya realise that writing is for those with money. For people like Priya, it should only be a hobby. But Priya refuses to understand. Refuses to understand the hard realities of life. Two hundred, two fifty is the most she gets for an item - a story, an article. If she does four items a month, writing all the time, she must be making a thousand rupees. Priya knows a taxi driver makes more but she doesn't seem to mind. She wants little. Her wants have shrunk suddenly ever since she went into writing. Her books are more precious than any money she may get. Writing alone can sustain her now. This is why and how many writers continue to write and live in near penury. Writing becomes an end in itself. It becomes the be-all and end-all of one's life. Economics however, plays a big role in our life today. Priya's mother keeps standing pressed to the gate looking out for the postman to bring her widow's pension for the month. It isn't due yet. The month isn't over yet. But she will stand there glued to the gate, forgetting to eat. Perhaps this money is her only safety. Priya may seek her safety in writing but she slides off to a calculation of her mother's assets even in the midst of her anxiety about the review and the face of Kesavan prying in and out in a degenerate sexual recall. Obviously somewhere in the recesses of her heart, Priya is conscious of how little she has by way of worldly possessions and what it may mean in a moment of crisis. Mother-daughter relationships and the generation gap have also been Stressed. Priya was far too miserable following her divorce. But her mother hated her for that. instead of sympathising with her or supporting her, she hated Priya.
The only solution the mother can think of - to pull Priya out of the mess and morass she has so willingly bound herself to, is second marriage. If Priya will somehow agree to marry Dr. Kesavan even at the age of 50, her economic hardships will end. And once married she may outgrow her passion for writing - writing which doesn't fetch her a single paisa by way of royalty.
Not only her mother, Priya might have herself liked to get married and happily settle down in life. After her divorce, years ago, when Kesavan had called her into his clinic when he needed not to have and had given her an injection in her buttock because there was virus raging in the air, she thought he was about to make a proposal. And she might even have accepted him. But he didn't. Even today, at 50 her thoughts slip to Kesavan and she admits that sex always lurks in some fold of her mind, vying with writing for the possession of her. While nervously waiting for the review of her latest book, she felt herself go woman and winding like a mermaid in the presence of Dr.Kesavan. She would have liked to rest her head on his chest and take the male comfort she had rejected all these years. She wished she could take a respite from the exacting taskmaster of writing to which she had bound herself, Writing or art, for that matter, can supplement life, it can't substitute it. The story thus depicts Priya as a woman, as a woman writer and as a writer transcending, if only temporarily, all the pulls and pressures of sex and society.
Dr.Kesavan is a typical Indian male - wanting Priya and not wanting Priya. He is attracted to her but something in him holds him back. Maybe it is her divorce. Divorced women are seen as aggressive, assertive and offbeat. Maybe he is not sure she will make a good wife or he a good husband - to her at least. Priya is 50. He must in all likelihood be older - but no reason is given about why he chose not to marry. Not yet. Priya is a strong, unconventional character. A divorcee, she does not seem to have any regrets. She would want to live life on her own terms. She knows this may be hard.
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UNIT 5 SHASHI DESHPANDE AND GITHA HARIHARAN
IGNOU Books- http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/22856/1/Unit-5.pdf
SHASHI DESHPANDE
Shashi Deshpande was born in Dharwad, daughter of the renowned dramatist and Sanskrit scholar Shri Adya Rangacharya. At the age of fifteen she went to Bombay, graduated in Economics from Elphinstone College, then moved to Banglore, where she gained a degree in Law winning two gold medals. The early years of her marriage were largely given over to the care of her two young sons, but she took a course in journalism from the Bhavan's R.P. College of Mass Communication, winning three medals. . Her writing career only began in earnest in 1970, initially with short stories. She is the author of four children's books and seven novels, the best known of which are The Dark Holds No Terrors, The Long Silence which won the Sahitya Akademi Award and The Binding Vine.
Works- The Legacy and Other ~rbries (1 97 1 ) It was the Nightingale (1986) The Miracle (1986) The Intrusion and Other Stories (1993) The Dark Holds No Terrors (1 980) IfI die Today (1982) Roots and Shadows (1983) Come up and be dead (1983) It was Dark ( 1 986) That Long Silence (1 988) The Binding Vine (1992) b A Matter of Time (1996) Small Remedies (2000)
MIRACLE -
This story is taken from The Miracle and Other stories published in 1986.
A laboratory where two doctors, a male and a female, are deeply engrossed in carrying out some test on monkeys to find out why an innocent-looking thing growing everywhere caused a strange disease when people ate it. People ate it, fell sick and died. These doctors are feeding the monkeys with this to know what actually happens inside them so that a cure may be found before it's too late. Fair enough, one would say. The problem arises when one particular monkey, Raaja, doesn't die even after he is given all that poison to consume. All the other monkeys have died. And that convinced Narayan, an employee there, that this is not an ordinary monkey. He is Hanuman, the monkey god himself. He is reincarnation of the great god. That in turn means that he should not be killed, his devotees should save him. Narayan sees it as a miracle -- all other monkeys have died after consuming that poisonous thing. Raja hasn't. He refused to die. Surely that's a miracle. And who other than a god can perform miracles? And Narayan cannot just helplessly and passively watch Hanuman being killed mercilessly by this team of doctors. The doctors are predictably aghast. A miracle? A mystery? How can anyone believe in miracles in this age? There is an explanation for everything. If this particular money whbm Narayan insists on calling Raaja has not died, they will want to know why and they will find out the cause soon enough. It would, infact, help them understand things better. There is a scientific explanation for everything. But Narayan's faith wouldn't let him give in. He obviously understands the importance of what the doctors are doing. He only wants this monkey, this particular monkey, this Raaja, to be let off, to be set free. He is no ordinary monkey. He is none other than Hanuman himself. For the doctors all this is "shoddy bogus, religious stuff' Shashi Deshpande and Githa Hariharan The Short Story and they are surprised that the typist girl who should know better, is pleading for Narayan, "You can't destroy someone's faith." "But if it's built on sand?" "Faith is always built on a rock. It's only if you stop believing that you see it as sand." The next morning Raaja is missing from the aninla1 house. He has escaped. Again a miracle! Well, if he is an incarnation of Hanuman, he can perform miracles, locks and keys can't keep in a god. The doctor duo obviously suspect Narayan of helping the monkey to escape. Narayan vehemently remonstrates - he can't possibly afford to lose his job - what would happen to his wife and children? Though he does let out to the typist that he did have a hand in Raja's escape. The doctor is surprised that any educated person, anyone who can think, should believe in this theory of reincarnation. The typist is put off by his self--righteousness and retorts that she would "rather believe in that than in nothing". Forgetting for the time being that she is a mere typist who shouldn't talk that way to him, she asks him, "Do you think that one is born and that's the beginning. And one dies and that's the end. Is that all of it?" "What else?' he asked me wonderingly. The typist looks around. The shelves are laden with glass jars, and bits of human beings pickled inside leer at them obscenely. Obviously a doctor dissects a being and puts the bits under a microscope and thinks that he/she can find all the answers. She grows defiant now, "You can put me under a microscope and you will never find ME. A human being ... that's a miracle. A baby's first cry .... that's a miracle. A monkey, will to live.. . that's a miracle!" The female doctor laughs and makes fun of her but the male doctor begins to understand the point she is trying to make and quotes Walt Whitman, "And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels." He again shows better understanding and empathy when he talks of Raaja, thus recognising that a monkey can have an identity. Raaja reappears at lunchtime on the windowsill but instead of trying to have him captured she offers him her banana and helps him disappear into the branches and leaves. However, she is shocked to notice that the male doctor has been standing in the door all this while and has witnessed her act of treachery. Soon she gets over her fright - why is she afraid? What is she worried about? Her job? Well, let it be. There are limits to everything. Her surprise and joy are, therefore, beyond words when he confesses, "There are miracles everywhere if you only open your eyes." Raaja ceases to be a mere test animal for him, he becomes a monkey called Raaja, having an identity of his own. Narayan is no mere worker either. He is a-man with two daughters and a son and faith in Hanuman should be accepted and respected as such. And the doctor finds the typist too no less than a miracle. And they get married soon thereafter. They have different tastes. She loves strong coffee while he drinks weak tea. She loves bright colours while he just blinks his eyes at them. But love is accepting the other person with all histher peculiarities and individuality. Love is recognition of the other person, other being, as an individual, as an entity. The last sentence beautifully sums it up, "Whoever heard of an incompatible Hindu marriage?" If you recognize and respect the otherness of the other person, where is the incompatibility?
There are only four characters in this story -- the male doctor, the female doctor, the typist girl and Narayan. The first three are not referred to by any names -- only pronouns. Narayan alone has a proper name. And of course, Raaja, the monkey.
GITHA MARIMARAN - AN INTRODUCTION
Githa Hariban grew up in Bombay and in Manali later in the United States, where she worked in public television.
Works - The Art of Dying and Other Stories (1993) contains twenty of her short stories. Her two novels are : The Thousand Faces of Night (1 992)[won her the -Commonwealth Writers Award for 1993] , and Where Dream Travel (1 999) me Ghosts of Vasu Master (1 994).
GAJAR HALWA -
The story is mainly about Perumayee - the young girl from Salem - and what all she goes through, in Salem and then in Delhi. It's also about her evolution and initiation into city life and its ways. When Peru~nayee comes to Delhi, she feels she should speak the truth, tell her prospective mistress that she cannot cook anything more than rice or gruel and maybe dal. Quickly she learns the Delhi ways, learns to swab quickly, skipping comers and under the beds when the mistress is not looking, leams to just squeeze out the baby's stinky clothes without properly washing them. She learns not to slave for her memsahib, leams to shut the kitchen door, turn the gas knob to high and hold her hands over the onions sizzling in oil to feel warm and safe. Learns also that in six months, once she has picked up the basics of city housekeeping, she can get a job for double the money in a richer colony. In a few years' time she may be no different from our wise, fawning Chellamma, bringing young girls from the village and supplying maids to the city folks making, in the process, a quick buck or two herself. Chellamma, we are told, had brought five village girls with her to Delhi. We can safely surmise that the other four girls would be as quick at adapting themselves to the Delhi ways as our protagonist. We can also safely gue-s what Chellamma would have been like the first time she herself came to Delhi. The process goes on - as long as the circumstances don't change, Delhi will continue to enrich the poor villagers. And the young village girls will continue to become part of the metropolitan system sacrificing their simplicity and innocence. Chellamma knows how to bargain what, to say and when, how not to give in. She knows the exact words that would please or soften the memsahib. She knows the mistress is ready but she also knows that she should not stretch things too far. She is no good Samaritan - Perumayee has to pay her fifty rupees a month for her services and liaison work. Then we have the mistress. We are not told her name. That's not important. What's important is that she badly needs a domestic help to do the chores and look after her baby. Perumayee is just a servant girl, No more or no less. The relationship between the two is very formal, matter-of-fact. She asks Chellamma her age - perhaps to gauge how much she knows, what all she can manage. She does not ask her name, does not ask her anything personal, Docs not want to know why she has come all the way to Delhi at such a young age. Does not want to know if she misses her mother. Being a mother herself, she could have shown some emotion, some concern for the girl. But she does not do so. Perumayee is coming to her as a maid -she should prove herself to be a good maid, and that's that. She is a typical mistress and the mistresses in other flats in the colony are a lot like her, Other maids are not very different from Perumayee either. So we can conclude that they too would be having more or less similar relationship with their employers. Education and affluence do not necessarily bring in understanding and compassion. Perumayee's mother has been portrayed in detail. An unhappy woman. A hardworking woman. She went to work every day, even on days when she was sick or when her stomach was hungry, to the highway being built near the village. She would Hariharan. And she would carry on her head baskets gravel all day long. Her husband of gravel all day long. Her husband was lazy and runkard. Obviously not bothered about his responsibility as the head of the family. t bothered about his wife and four children. No wonder Perumayee's mother was lays screaming. She couldn't possibly see the children starve to death. She couldn't ;sibly watch the husband squander money on drinks - whatever little money there is. And so he left. A very familiar scenario! And she is left to fend for her four Idren. Again these characters are not given any names. This could be any couple in a1 India. What is important is the situation, the compulsions of the situations. She is rave woman who faces the situation with courage - accepts this backbreaking work 1 when even this tunnel is blocked, takes the bold decision to send Perumayee with yellamma in search of a job.
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UNIT 6 - RUSKIN BOND
IGNOU book - http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/22857/1/Unit-6.pdf
Ruskin Bond is a long time resident of Landour and Mussoorie, a beautiful hill station in Uttar Pradesh of India. He has published some 70 odd books. Ruskin Bond was born in 1939. As he lost his father at an early age and had to grow up in his step-father's house, he became rather an introspective reticent person who immersed himself in a world of books. His novel The Room on the Roof won him the prestigious John Llewellyn Rhys Prize when he was only 18. In 1992 his collection of stories Trees Still Grow in Dehradun got him the Sahitya Akademi Award.
Major Works of Ruskin Bond :
A Season of Ghosts. Delhi is not far : the best ofRuskin Bond. Quakes and flames Bond. An island of trees : nature stories and po Bond. Mussoorie and Landour : days of wine and R Bond. Snake trouble. Time stops at Shamli and other stories. Beautiful Garhwal : Heaven in Himalayas. The night train at Deoli and other stories. The adventures of Rusty. To live in magic : a book of nature poems. A flight of pigeons. 1977 A girl from Copenhagen. 1975 Lone fox dancing : lyric poems. '1972 An axe for the Rani. 1972 It isn't time that 's passing. 1969 Strange men, strange places. 1968 My first love and other stones. 1967 The neighbour'S wife and other stones. 1957 The room on the roof
NO ROOM FOR A LEOPARD
This story was first published in A Bond with the Mountains in 1998. It is a very . . moving account of the killing of a trusting leopard by a group of shikaris. Leopard skins were selling in Delhi at over a thousand rupees each.
The protagonist had not come to take anything from the jungle; the birds and animals soon grew accustomed to his face . The difference between the children's thinking and the adult thinking has also been brought out. Children love nature. They love all the birds and animals. It comes naturally to them. No ulterior consideration enters their innocent minds. They can never ever think of harming the animals or exploiting them for their personal gain or profit. But the adults are solely driven by mercenary considerations. If a leopard's skin can fetch them a good price, they would not think twice before killing him.
The young narrator loved every bird and animal. He meant them no harm. They In return trusted him and accepted him and cared for him, in their own way But their acceptance of hls presence, of human presence proved to be their undoing The leopard became trusting, became less cautious, took the shikaris also to be friends And lost his life. Hereafter at least animals stopped trusting human beings And this distrust soon spread far and wide.
At the end of the story the child does not stand enlightened, he stands embittered, disillusioned. In a way this story is a comment on the modem world and its lifestyle.
COPPERFIELD IN THE JUNGLE
This story was first published in Tigers Forever in 1996. It is an autobiographical story. It tells us how the young Ruskin Bond could never get interested in the hunting expeditions of his Uncle Henry and some of his sporting friends.
Uncle Henry and some of his sporting friends once took him on a shikar expedition into the Terai forests of the Siwalik hills. The prospect of spending one whole week in the jungle with several adults with guns only filled him with dismay. They would all the time be thinking and talking of hunting a tiger or an elephant and he did not at all look forward to it. So, on their second day in the jungle, he managed to be left behind at the rest houie. And in a corner of the back verandah of that old bungalow he discovered a shelf of books - some thirty volumes, obviously untouched for many years. Much too young to know what was good and what was not, he would have read anything and everything with pleasure. However much to his delight the bookshelf contained good books.
Ruskin's imagination becomes active the moment he discovers the books. Who could have left them there? A literary forest officer? A memsahib who got bored by her husband's camp-fire boasting? Or someone who had no interest in the 'manly' sport of slaughtering wild animals? At the end of the week the four men with guns could only see a spotted deer and shmt two miserable, underweight wild fowls. Sitting in the rest-house with his treasure of books Ruskin Bond saw not only the spotted deer crossing the open clearing in front of the bungalow but also a large leopard making off into the jungle wit3 one of the dogs held in its jaws. Since the leopard had done it only to help itself to a meal, it did not disturb young Ruskin beyond a point and he returned to his reading. The hunting party however, refused to believe this, attributing this bit of information to his overactive imagination under the immediate influence of Dickens's vivid portrayal of Master Copperfield. Ruskin brings the half - finished novel back with him. David Copperfield, published in 1849-50, is Dickens's veiled autobiography.
AN ISLAND OF TREES
This story is taken from An Island of Trees published in 1992. This is a dialogue between Koki and her grandmother. They are sitting in the shade of an old jackfruit tree and Grandmother talks about her father and his great love for trees and flowers. She tells Koki that she was convinced that plants loved her father with as much tenderness as he loved them. She reads how sometimes when she sat alone beneath a tree she would feel a little lonely or lost. But as soon as her father joined her, the garden would become a happy place, the tree itself more friendly. Grandmother personifies the trees.
At the end of the story Grandmother mtes an experience, which reveals the deep bond that grows between humans and non-humans if only there is love and compassion. After twenty years or more she returned to her house and one day walked over to the island where her father had once planted all kinds of trees. While a small spotted deer scampered away to hide in a thicket and a wild pheasant challenged her with a mellow 'who are you?' the trees seemed to know her and beckoned her nearer. She ran her hands over their barks and it was like touching the hands of old friends. She noticed that many small trees and wild plants and grasses had sprung up under the protection of those whom she and her father had planted years ago. The trees had multiplied. 171e forest was on the move. Her father's dream was coming true - the trees were walking again, by multiplying, by spreading their shade and benign influence. Ruskin Bond In 'No Room for a Leopard' and 'Copperfield i
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