All we have are imperfect, conflicting cultural scripts, hinting at the terrifying “unpredictability” of the Real 💜

Today’s Newspapers in English

#newspaperinlearning #litforlife

How to Separate the Narrative from the Story!

‘Doing’ Literary Theory through the Daily Newspaper

8th February 2026

Well, three news reports on the same story, have been ‘presented’ to the reader in today’s three reputed Newspapers in English, namely, The New Indian Express, The Hindu, and The Times of India.

Or rather, three distinct “narratives” of the same “story” - have been presented.

While the core story - a driver died after his truck fell into the sea at Chennai Port - remains constant, the “truth” of how and why it happened shifts dramatically depending on which report (narrative) we read.

We find that, each of the three reports differ significantly, in their ‘narrative’ style to the story!

The New Indian Express specifically states that, the container was transporting solar panels; returning to Tirunelveli, and also mentions the legal specifics like BNS Sections 281 & 106 (1).

The Hindu mentions that, it was a pick-up a container; meant for Thoothukudi.

The Times of India states that, the truck unloaded a container; entered a restricted/unauthorised area, and claims that workers “warned him not to proceed.”

The New Indian Express presents the narrative frame from a labour perspective or a working-class perspective! By citing “fatigue” and his “return journey,” it paints a picture of an overworked driver. Also, it is the only report to cite the specific new criminal laws (BNS), and it also cites the police, as sources.

The Hindu presents the narrative from a bureaucratic perspective. It is quite concise and detached in its tone. Notably, it contains a significant factual discrepancy regarding the day (Thursday vs. Saturday), suggesting it may have been based on preliminary or unverified inputs., and doesn’t quote or cite its sources as well.

The Times of India presents a ‘dramatic’ narrative from the corporate perspective! It uses terms like “freak accident” and details much on the “cabin detaching.” It also introduces a “blame the victim” narrative by stating he entered a “restricted area” despite warnings, which contradicts the “fatigue/wrong turn” narrative of the Indian Express. It also cites port authorities as its sources.

So why-oh-why do they carry such different / differing views of the same news story?

In literary theory and in journalism, there is no single, objective view from nowhere schema!

So what then is a narrative? 

In literary theory in general, and in narratology in particular, the term narrative represents two distinct layers of a text - the distinction between content (what happened) and form (how it is communicated).

The story refers to the raw material of the events in their chronological sequence. It is the timeline of actions as they presumably happened in the fictional reality, irrespective of how the author chooses to reveal them. 

The narrative is the specific way the author or creator chooses to present the events to the audience. This includes the ordering of time (flashbacks, flash-forwards), the point of view, the medium (text, film, oral), and the pacing. The structure is often non-linear or artistic!

Coming back - 

Variations in the narrative might have occurred due to several factors -

The Indian Express musta spoken to police officers filing the FIR (hence the BNS codes). ToI likely spoke to port workers or eyewitnesses on the ground (hence the detail about the cabin detaching and workers warning him). The Hindu likely relied on a preliminary press release or a brief police update!

Added, usually, it is the Editor who finally takes the call on what is “newsworthy,” and how it has to be presented to the readers.

Hence, while, ToI prioritises the “freak” nature of the accident to grab attention, Indian Express prioritises on the “fatigue” angle, perhaps to highlight labour conditions. The Hindu probably doesn’t seem to prioritise anything here. 😊

Now let’s try and look at the presentation / representation from the viewpoint of literary theory - 

Well, post-structuralists argue that a text (or news report) does not have a fixed meaning or truth. The “signified” (the actual accident) is obscured by the “signifier” (the words used to describe it).

The fact that the driver is 35 in one report and 36 in another, or that the accident happened on Thursday in one and Saturday in another, destabilises the reader’s trust in the ‘truthfulness’ or the ‘reality’ of the presentation.

The “texts” given here to the reader prove that we cannot access the absolute reality of the accident, only “versions” of it. That’s because none of us saw the accident. We only see the “texts”. Therefore, for the public, the texts are the reality. The original event has dissolved, replaced by these three competing simulacra.

Jean Baudrillard in his seminal text titled, Simulacra and Simulation (1981) argues that in the postmodern world, the representation of reality replaces reality itself, which he terms the Simulacrum. And the state of existence where this substitution is complete - where we can no longer distinguish between the reality and the representation - is what he calls Hyperreality.

The news report simulates a “truth” to hide the fact that there is no single truth to be found. In essence, then, when the Simulacra (the news reports) become more real to us than the physical event itself, we are living in Hyperreality.

Three distinct “realities” now exist in the public imagination. Did he die because he was tired? Or because his truck broke? Or because he went where he shouldn’t have?

All three are now “true” in the datasphere.

The New Indian Express has written a legal/human interest story. The Hindu has come up with an administrative report, while The Times of India has got a sensationalist feature.

This collection of reports is a perfect example of how media does not just reflect reality - it rather “constructs” reality for us!

Now, and finally at that, let’s do one last theoretical “work” on the “texts”😊

Let’s for a moment try and connect the three news reports to Catherine Belsey’s lovely book titled, Culture and the Real (2005).

Belsey’s work focuses heavily on the Lacanian concept of The Real - that which is outside language, unrepresentable, and traumatic.

To Belsey, culture (including news reports, language, and art) exists to shield us from the Real, or to try and make sense of it, even though the Real always resists symbolisation.

To Belsey then - interpreting Lacan, as a Lacanian devotee herself – the Real is the raw, unmediated, traumatic event itself - the physical moment the truck hit the water, the metal crushing, the water entering the lungs, the cessation of life. This is the trauma that cannot be fully expressed in words. It is absolute, terrifying, and resists meaning.

However, culture (journalism, language, literature) tries to “paper” or “text” the horror of the Real by turning it into a story we can understand by means of language.

The news reports turn the traumatic Real into a narrative.

That’s hence Belsey argues that, culture works to tame the real. By naming the driver (Muthu Marriappan), giving his age (36), and citing the law (BNS 281), the newspapers are trying to bring the terrifying chaos of death into the orderly world of language.

Belsey argues that culture always fails to fully capture the Real. There is always a “gap” or a “lack” (Reminded of the Lacanian ‘lack’, here, anybody?) 😊 where language falls short.

When we observe carefully, we can also notice how the reports contradict each other.

Was it Thursday or Saturday?

Was he 35 or 36?

Did the cabin detach or did he take a wrong turn?

These contradictions, to Belsey, are the fissures where the Symbolic order fails. The “truth” of the accident escapes the journalists. They cannot pin it down. This “slippage” of meaning (where the signifiers don’t match the signified) is exactly what Belsey and post-structuralists highlight.

The “Real” of the man’s death is absent; all we have are imperfect, conflicting cultural scripts, hinting at the terrifying “unpredictability” of the Real. That’s hence Peter Barry in his Beginning Theory would have us believe that, ‘reality is relative!’

To sum it up then, the three news reports are in fact cultural mechanisms attempting to “symbolise” through “language” a traumatic event (The Real). However, their contradictions and variations prove Belsey’s argument that, Culture can never fully grasp the Real. The “truth” of the driver’s death is lost in the gap between the three different stories, leaving us only with “culture” (text), not reality.

What, then, is culture? 😉 

Finding "Soulcraft" in a Bucket of Water ❤️

Of Chloroform & Chemistry, Frogs & Football 😊

MCC School Days

7th February 1995 (31 years ago!)

#memoriesfromdiaries

MCC School today [clicked last month - January 2026]

On this particular day - we had Zoology practicals. Since the lab attender (LA) didn’t show up with the frogs on time, our Zoology Master asked us to write a test instead. And right when we were about to start the test, bang came the frogs! 😊

The LA had collected 50 frogs for our class, at Rs. 10/- per frog. All 50 of us, dissected a frog each. It was indeed quite interesting to dissect the live frog, that was sedated with chloroform. Our Zoology master was a very conscientious teacher. He came up to each of us, and pointed out the mistakes that we had made. The lab class spilled into the Tamil class, and we were late to Jayaraman sir’s Tamil class.

And I remember this interesting incident that connects to our frog dissection!

When we had our frog dissection, usually the frogs were given chloroform, and we had to pin its legs to the dissection board.

All was well, for my friend Jaison, who was busy taking out the dissection board to pin the frog to the board, when, suddenly, to everyone’s shock, the frog suddenly having come out of its stupor, pounced out of the dissection board, and into the huge sink, kept in the table.

Jaison yelled out a shriek in his distinct nasal voice, which caught the attention of our Zoology master in no time! He came straight up to Jaison’s table, and gave him minus marks for shouting! Albeit for no fault of Jaison, the poor boy was awarded a punishment!

Post-lunch session, classes resumed. You see, hostel days were also days when boys always wanted money in our wallets. So it was, that my bestie and hostel mate Sunil had borrowed Rs. 100/- and he had just then returned Rs.70/- I was so happy to get the money back, and I was dreaming about how to spend it on a movie at Ega theatre for the weekend, when Prince gently approached me, and got Rs. 20/- from the returns. Yes, those were lovely days, when we all indulged in this borrow, repay, borrow, repeat schedule! 😊

MCC School - Football Ground

Our school was known for our football team. So during PT hour, we all played football in the F1 ground.

In Chemistry class, we were taught about Aliphatic Hydrocarbons - organic compounds containing only carbon and hydrogen, structured in straight chains, branched chains, or non-aromatic rings.

Those were days when our teachers did not like students skipping classes, even for NSS or College events. They ensured that all students turned up for their classes. Nedumaran master was one such conscientious teacher!

He asked the class, “Is anyone here attending the NSS Camp?”

Nanda stood up politely, raising his hands.

You could have missed getting an observation sign from me, he remarked.

Don’t believe these politicians. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, once said, ‘Be Indian, Buy Indian’. But he himself took an Italian wife. Also, he always used to wear expensive foreign brands like Adidas and Reebok. So don’t be corrupted by the cheap words of the politicians, he quipped. The politicians and ministers declare that they serve the country, but in reality, they were only exploiting the country, he said, in a portmanteau word – which we call – structural nativisms, or regional idiosyncrasies in language usage – soranding! 😊

After school was over, I washed my clothes – from 3.25 pm to 4.20 pm - a habit that I meticulously follow all these years. I never give my clothes to the laundry. I ensure that I wash my clothes. Something that I also advocate in my students.

While delegating chores can save time, there is a unique set of benefits that come along with handling these tasks by ourselves. It also provides us with a “mental reset” in a high-speed world.

Moreover, manual labour speaks a lot to our personal character.

Matthew Crawford’s 2009 book titled, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work is one of the best books that speaks to the importance of the value of personal labour and personal accountability!

He discusses how fixing a machine provides “objective” feedback to us – and reinforces the idea that doing your own maintenance forces you to confront reality, building true self-reliance.

The book also discusses on how modern consumer culture always encourages us to be passive and dependent.

Modern devices (cars, iPhones, appliances) are designed to be sealed shut. We aren’t supposed to know how they work; we are just supposed to buy new ones when they break. 

To Crawford, this makes us feel fragile and dependent. When we don’t know how our own world works, we lose agency (the feeling that we can impact our environment). However, learning to fix things (doing your own chores/maintenance) restores that agency. It transforms you from a passive “consumer” into an active “master” of your own stuff.

So in essence, Crawford argues that, when we stop doing our own maintenance, we don’t just lose out on money (by paying someone else), but also lose a connection to the material world. We become “ghostly”.

One thing that I particularly love about the book is the differentiation that Crawford makes between Autonomy and Agency.

In modern culture, we define freedom as Autonomy. This is the ability to make choices without interference. It is “freedom from constraints.”

We say, “I don't want to be tied down. I want to buy what I want, live how I want, and outsource the things I don't want to do.” And, we think buying a new car makes us free. We think paying a maid service makes us free.

Crawford argues this is a fragile freedom. You are “free” only as long as you have money and the system works. If your car breaks and you can’t fix it, your autonomy vanishes instantly. You become dependent on a tow truck, a mechanic, and a credit card. You are a passive consumer of your own life.

On the other hand, agency is the capacity to act on the world and see a result. It is not about escaping constraints; it is about mastering them.

You cannot “talk your way” out of a pile of dirty laundry. You must accept the laws of physics and the nature of the task.

When you submit to the task and complete it, you gain genuine power. You are no longer dependent. You have the competence to sustain your own existence,

he observes. 

This, then, is the icing on the book’s philosophy: You only gain Agency by giving up some Autonomy.

Crawford signs off by saying that, Autonomy makes us lonely and anxious because it disconnects us from reality. Agency makes us grounded and confident because it connects us to the world - we live in reality.

5,004 Knots: The Day Trichy Became the World’s Largest Wedding Hall ❤️

The Mother of All Weddings: When 10,008 Souls Said “I Do” 😊

This day, 30 years ago, from my personal diary entry

#memoriesfromdiaries

It is indeed quite fascinating to look back at this day, from exactly 30 years ago!

The political landscape of Tamil Nadu politics had witnessed a spectacle that remains unparalleled in its scale and ambition.

The scale of the weddings was so grand that, if you had been in Trichy on this day - 7th February 1996, you weren’t just in a city - you were in the world’s largest wedding venue. 😊

The mass marriage of 5,004 couples – which means 10,008 brides and bridegrooms, and at least 40,000 relatives on either side.

Each of the 5,004 couples had received –

A 4-gram gold mangalsutra.

Silver toe-rings (mettis).

A 28-item gift pack, featuring silk sarees, dhotis, utensils, and lamps,

from the Chief Minister.

Through this mega-wedding ceremony, Jayalalithaa was solidifying her image as “Amma” (Mother) - a provider who cared for the poorest of the poor. And quite interestingly, 1996 happened to be an election year as well. 

However, the alleged “Color TV Scam,” that followed, involving the purchase of more than 45,000 TVs at inflated prices, led to her subsequent arrest in December 1996. While she was eventually acquitted in 2000, that month in jail changed her approach to populism forever.

So when she returned to power in 2001 and 2011, the era of “Mega-Weddings” was already over!!!

Now, having learnt a bitter lesson, her strategy shifted from one-time, expensive institutionalised welfare weddings to the birth of the iconic “Amma” brand of services like Amma Canteens, Amma Water, Amma Salt, Amma Medicals, etc.

A great lesson in public demand, that helped transform a political leader into a lasting cultural icon!  

Photo Courtesy: The New Indian Express | Added Sources: The Hindu

TheatrEyrie Welcomes You... ❤️

 

7th February 2026

Greetings!

TheatrEyrie, the theatre wing of the Department of English (Aided), Madras Christian College, is celebrating its completion of ten years with an intercollegiate Theatre Competition on 17.02.2026 and a one-day Theatre Workshop on 18.02.2026.

As part of the Intercollegiate Theatre Competition (17.02.2026), we invite teams from colleges to take part and celebrate theatre with us. Do participate and win exciting prizes.

The registration form for the Competition

https://forms.gle/bkXJkpNuKevgQmt39

The following day (18.02.2026), we also have a one-day Theatre Workshop.

Please register for the same. Looking forward to your presence.

The registration form for the Workshop

https://forms.gle/htFHYzgackfhmqSk6

Unboxing Berger’s "Ways of Seeing" ❤️

So who came first? Mulvey or Berger?

Ways of Seeing | John Berger

When the Cover is… Chapter 1 !!! 😊

A Cornerstone Book for Cultural Studies

It’s a fact, universally acknowledged, that a literary being in possession of a good collection of books, must be super-excited to gift it to a kindred spirit! 😊

And so it was, that, when Dr. Ganesh, my kindred spirit called me up this morning, (I was then in the Council Room along with our Principal, Deans and a host of other officials, facilitating the signing of two MoUs – one with USA and one with South Korea - an eventful MoU Signing it really was, today, since for the first time, in a long time, we had two MoUs with two International Universities happening on a single day - and more on that in a special post),

I impulsively rushed down to meet him, and after exchanging that memorable hug, - there he was, as ever, gifting me a lovely book – a lovelyyy gesture that I cherish a lot!

It’s titled, Ways of Seeing by John Berger.

Interestingly, just this morning, we were discussing “Ways of Seeing” and the “Politics of the Gaze” in my II MA English class and the III BA English class as well.

We are all of the opinion that it was Laura Mulvey who first popularised the term, ‘male gaze’. However, we are slightly mistaken here. It was indeed Berger who deserves the ‘pioneering’ credits. 😊

Berger identified the social behaviour of looking at women as objects in art history, in 1972. Later, in the year 1975, Mulvey gave that behaviour its academic name and analysed it within the context of film.

It was Berger who famously pointed out the difference between being “naked” and being “nude” –

“To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others… A nude has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude,” he observes.

He demonstrates how Western oil painting has historically positioned women as objects to be looked at by a male spectator! By this - his rock-the-boat remarks, he brought art criticism down to earth-level, insisting that art is a reflection of power, property, and class!

Again, just this afternoon, over lunch, when I saw a vibrant I MA student reading Orwell’s 1984, I asked him what he particularly liked about the book. He came up with some amazing responses. I was so happy to listen to his observations on the book. More so, just because of the fact that he carried a book with him, all the time, and spoke with such excitement about the book.

Felt so happy, and so I also exhorted him to read the ‘paratexts’ of the book – which refers to everything in a book that isn’t the main body of the text – it could be the cover, the font, the layout, and even the “blurb,” which conveys and transmits ‘significations’ in equal measure.

In that sense, in Berger’s Ways of Seeing the Paratext is revolutionary by all means!

That’s because it was designed in such a way to deconstruct or to ‘destruct’ the traditional authority of ‘the book’. 😊

Starting from the cover, you’ll be surprised to find that, the text of the first chapter actually begins on the front cover itself. OMG! 😊

Added, the book uses a heavy, sans-serif font, which feels quite thick or dense – in a way which we haven’t seen or read before! In short, the typesetting isn’t quite elegant on the eyes at least in this book!

Curiously enough, even the images do not find a separate section at the centre of the book. Rather, they seem to be forcibly dropped into the flow of the sentences, often interrupting our readability, and thereby forcing us to ‘look’ while we ‘read’.

In essence, Berger seems to say that, looking also is a form of reading. Or, a book doesn’t communicate to us through the verbal argument, alone! Everything in the ‘text’ then becomes a ‘text!’ 😊

Now, let’s just look at the front cover of the book –

The statement “Seeing comes before words” is both the first sentence of the book and perhaps his life motto as well! (Reminds us of J. Krishnamurti here] 😊

In fact, Berger has used Rene Magritte’s painting for the cover which heightens the poetics and the radicality of the paratext!

Magritte shows a horse labelled “the door,’" a clock labelled “the wind,” a pitcher labelled “the bird,” and a suitcase labelled “the valise”.

Berger uses these images to immediately destabilise our trust in language. It forces us to realise that the labels we put on things (words) are often arbitrary and can actually distract us from the reality of what we are seeing.

If we carefully look at the sentence right above the painting –

“The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.”

This is indeed the “wow” moment of the cover, you see! Berger is so subtly telling us that even though the reader knows that it is a horse, the word “door” creates a friction. This friction is where critical thinking happens, and it’s exactly what he wants the ‘critical reader’ to apply to every painting and advertisement in the chapters to come. 😊

And lastly, if you observantly look at the very bottom of the cover, the sentence is cut off – “The way we see things is affected by what we...”

A real cliffhanger of a sentence. What does this mean?

Well, let’s continue our discussions on this aspect, tomorrow 😊

You may want to read more on Dr. Ganesh HERE on our past blogpost!

A Fruition of Decades: WCC Professors Launch Essential Birding Guide 💚

The New Go-To Guide for Chennai’s Own Birders 😊 

I am so delighted to present this book by three vibrant birders, who are also Professors with Women’s Christian College, Chennai – Dr. Vanitha Williams, Dr. Benitha Golda and Dr. Jancy Merlin. 

The book is titled, A Pocket Guide to Wetland Birds in and around Chennai, and it was released on 20th January 2026. 

This pocket guide is a fruition of field trips to different wetlands for more than a decade and documents 125 Wetland Birds and Wetland Associated Birds, with 370 colour photographs. It is ideal for anyone who is interested in birding. 

One unique feature of the book is that, it provides photographic documentation, habitat preferences, distributional information and a brief descriptive account, for each species. 

Added, in their insightful prefatory to the book, the authors give a panoramic sweep of Chennai’s wetlands. 

Just excerpts from the Preface for us all – 

The bird species included in this guide have been recorded from several ecologically significant wetlands in and around Chennai, notably Pallikaranai Marshland, Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary, Karikili Bird Sanctuary, Pulicat Lake and the backwaters of Nemmeli, Muthukadu and Mudaliarkuppam. These wetlands represent a range of freshwater, brackish and coastal ecosystems that support rich avian diversity,

say the authors. 

On an aside - 

Well, a couple of months ago, I had the delightful privilege of ushering four passionate birders from WCC to MCC for an evening’s birding time deep into the woods, up unto the lake and back. After our birding, we were welcomed by the Librarian and his wife (who’s a birder herself) to their home, for coffee time.  

Little did I know back then, that they were about to come up with such an engaging book on Wetland Birds in Chennai a few months later. 😊 

“We wish and hope that our journey inspires many more young people to take their eyes off the screen and focus their lenses on the amazing beauties in flight – the birds that live serenely in our wetlands”, they opine, on their expectations from this wonderful publication.   

May their dreams come true!   

Copies of the book can be had by contacting the Department of Zoology, WCC, Chennai.

Meet our Feathered Friends 💚💚💚

#intothewildwithrufus