Monday, 30 January 2017

From a Postcolonial lens...

The Chennai Book Fair (2017)
Jolene Candice, II M.A English

It was a bright and sunny day when I went to the book fair. My onward journey was really something. First of all I was worried about the transportation because of the Jallikattu issue. Then, I happened to witness an interesting scene in the train. There was a man, probably the TTR, who was asking the people who were standing near the door to move inside for there were ample space. The interesting thing was that this person did not get angry or raise his voice at any point even when the girls started getting irritated and started to speak disrespectfully. This person stayed polite till the very end and the words he spoke seemed to have a painful story behind them. It was really funny for me at first but when I thought about it later I understood the anguish, the distress every parent goes through every time they let their children travel alone. It made me think a little.

As for the book fair, it was the first time I have been to a book fair as such, and so I was really surprised to see such a big event in front of me. There were also second hand street book stores and not to mention the food which I thoroughly enjoyed. The book store which grabbed my attention was the one concerning classical music. They had a lot of books which teaches the ways to master classical music. The interesting part is that it was all about western classical music and the book was in Tamil. I couldn’t help but think of it from a kind of postcolonial perspective. This made realize the change that literature has brought over the years, in my way of perceiving and looking at different things.


It was a very pleasant experience with my friends. I learnt some good things. It was a good day, a good memory.

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