Acting Workshop (Part-time)

Mirage Film Institute, T.Nagar, is conducting a month-long film acting workshop from 26 January 2015. Classes will be held on weekdays in the evenings, from 7 pm to 9 pm.

Students will be initiated into the various nuances of film acting, through exercises, games, visualisation techniques, scene improvisation, method acting, character building and acting for camera. 

There will also be a video shoot to prepare the student to face the camera.

Acting coach Jack Prabhu will be the resource person. Only limited seats available.

To register, call 99520 99040

[PC: Walnut Street Theatre]

Congrats to Poet Arundhathi Subramaniam!

Noted poet Arundhathi Subramaniam has won the inaugural Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry for her work When God is a Traveller.

The winner was announced at a prize ceremony at the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival 2015. The award carries a cash prize of Rs.2 lakhs, and it was established by Suhel Seth in memory of the late Khushwant Singh and is open to Indian poets writing in English or Indian language translation.

Our congratulations to the poet! 

Arundhathi was here with us at the Department of English, Madras Christian College, to read out from her collection of poetry on 17 December 2012, as part of our annual 'Poetry with Prakriti' festivities.

We wish you many many more laurels in the years to come! 

Arundhathi @ MCC HERE

Eco Film Fest 2015 in Chennai

Software and More for the Visually Challenged..!

One interesting stall that caught the attention of many an inquisitive visitor at the Chennai Book Fair was Stall 48 S, that highlighted the various software available for the visually impaired. Volunteers who manned the stall, explained the various electronic facilities available for the visually challenged in the Digital Era. The Karna Vidya Technology Centre, with the patronage of the Rotaract Club of Drishti, gives counselling for free to all those who visit its stall. 

They give a demonstration on the DAISY software, [Digitally Accessible Information System] where voice and words synchronise, port, and read aloud in the best and easily accessible way, is a very interactive software for the visually challenged. Apart from this, there are thousands of Digital EBooks available exclusively for the visually challenged, and the availability of Talkback software for androids and tablets, and learning devices like Math pads, Braille pads, etc. 

For more details, you may contact: 

K. Raghuraman

Karna Vidya Technology Centre

RR Toweres III, Thiru-Vi-Ka Industrial Estate

Guindy, Chennai – 600 032

Mobile: 9840018012/9840667984

Email: kvtc.chennai@gmail.com

Chennai Book Fair 2015

The previous edition of the Chennai Book Fair was way better at crowd and parking management, if the 4 ‘P’s [parking lots/pollution control/public toilets//police presence] statistics were taken as an indication. 

A quick look to the right of this blog would give a snap of the parking lot last year, which was managed effectively by the police personnel who manned the entire parking bays. This year, since the parking bay had by now been turned into a playing court, parking was more chaotic than last year! Adding to the woes, the pathways and the stall venues, especially the food courts, were filled with pollution (both air and land!!!), and very little was done to keep pollution under check, as was done in the previous editions of the Fair.

Crowd management wasn’t that effective too, as police personnel were thinly deployed, compared to last year! Rising number of food courts is testimony to the fact that, people come to the fair for a sort of comprehensive package – food for the mind as well as for the body!

Cleaning equipment, designed by some dynamic novices, [maybe as part of their project work in final year engineering], was up for sale, and the equipment, the size of a huge pen, could be fitted in any used MNC Cola drinks pet bottles! Many who passed by these equipments, had more of a smile on their faces on the novel find, than wanting to go for it!

Indeed, right from Arabian nuts to soap bubble toys, you have them all there!

“When my cousin Indira was the Prime Minister, I had to step out, especially during the Emergency"

Well, yes... Yet another glorious chapter in literature unfolded today at 9.40 am at Harrington Road, Chetpet, Chennai. 

Nayantara Sahgal, one of the most venerated and renowned post-Independence Novelists in English -inaugurated the fifth edition of The Hindu Lit for Life 2015.

Speaking on the occasion, Nayantara gave out a strongly-worded message in support of freedom of expression - 

“Let me just endorse what Nirmala has just said. If this kind of intimidation and bullying goes on there will be no more literary festivals of this caliber”. 

“Firstly I would like to see the formation of a union  or  common platform for writers and concerned citizens to come together to speak in support of writers who are in danger and have been intimidated by fringe groups, as in the recent case of Murugan Perumal”.

Eleanor Catton, Winner of the Booker in conversation...

The first session of the fest saw Eleanor Catton, the youngest recipient of the Booker Prize in conversation with Parvathi Nayar.

Introducing Eleanor as an outstanding writer who weaves complex, divergent and experimental themes in every strand of her writing, Parvathi Nayar set the ball rolling by asking her about how life had changed after becoming an acknowledged celebrity author, and how she felt being catapulted to the limelight all of a sudden, and what’s really changed after the Booker. 

Eleanor said -

“Well, it was indeed a curious thing to suddenly be in the public eye for which I was unprepared for!”

Reading out a passage from her first novel The Rehearsal, the youngest Booker Prize winner said that, 

“The novel is thoroughly experimental by nature, and as someone who’s working on the fringes, dealing with the extraordinary was something I thoroughly enjoyed!” 

Narrating the birth of the novel, and how it was originally meant out to be a play, she said that, it started as a monologue for a saxophone player, a friend of hers, and later, as life got in the way, she thought it would be much interesting as a piece of fiction than as a play. 

The feminist performance theory that makes up the gamut of the novel was something she came across as a result of her first introduction to feminism in University. She said -

Nayantara Sahgal in conversation 

“After I finished the book I could see that, the book became a kinda theatre of its own. Moreover, issues dealt with, in the book, are concerns that affected me as an individual.” 

“For example, when you reach puberty, you become your own audience, self-conscious, and the experience of being a teen was absolutely enigmatic. I always wanted to be somebody outside of my own skin, and always conscious of being watched!”

On being asked if the book was being made into a movie, Eleanor nodded in the affirmative and added, saying -

“One of the curious things about being a writer is that, you grow older, but your book doesn’t. So the distance between you and your book also grows!”

Talking about The Luminaries, (the longest book & the youngest author ever to win the Booker), Eleanor said that, each of the twelve characters in the book is associated with one of the twelve zodiac signs, and yet another set of characters is modelled on one of the heavenly bodies in the solar system. 

In this regard, she said that she discovered a computer programme online wherein, if you enter any date or time of any year, you can see how exactly the skies will look. 

So I keyed in the date when gold was first discovered, watched the sky revolve and took note on it. I sat with all the data, and soon realised that I wanted to write a novel based on it.

On quizzed about one of the most debatable points about The Luminaries, - the concept of structure, she said that, structure to her was more of a liberating one than a constraining one! Citing an instance to relate to her point, she added - 

“When, I as a teacher, taught UG Classes in the US to a class of 20 students, at least four or five will be absolutely identical – like using their adjectives, idioms, etc.“ 

“But when I asked them to write a poem from today’s front page of a newspaper, with a ridiculous number of constraints, then their imagination gets fired and they are quite unique”!

Stressing on the importance of reading, which does 90% of the job of a writer’s life, she quipped -

“There’s a beautiful native plant out there in New Zealand that changes its physical dimensions halfway through its life. This is exactly the metaphor for reading! We begin defensively and change towards the end of our lives.”

“Moreover, Reading shapes our impressions and perceptions of the world, and hence, we should read, more so, for the power of transformation this exercise can give us!” 

she signed off.

A section of the audience

The second session of the day witnessed Nayantara Sahgal in conversation with Geeta Doctor and Ritu Menon.

Sahgal said that the title of her memoir Prison and Chocolate Cake, was suggested by her publisher, and not by her grandmother as misquoted by some! 

“In my childhood, I was taught that going to prison was a privilege.”  

“When my father was first arrested, I was two years old. So my mother didn’t want us to be unhappy. So whenever dad went to prison, she would make us chocolate cakes and give us, and that explains the title.”

Speaking out, yet again, on the issue of freedom of expression, Nayantara said -

“Ever since Aubrey Menen, whose book happens to be the first book ever to be proscribed in India, there have been rising instances of unrest over artists and their creations”. 

“There’s a definite trend that cannot be ignored. Artists have been threatened. Paintings have been vandalised. Hence, we need a forum where writers and concerned citizens should come together to join in unison against the highhanded moral policing of some of these fringe outfits, who destabilise the right to freedom of expression, and thereby take the law into their own hands!”

On asked, about the political and the personal in her life, Sahgal said - 

“To me, there’s no difference between the two in my life. Politics is not something out there because it intimately connected us in the home”. 

“I belonged to a political family. [She is the cousin of Smt. Indira Gandhi, and the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru’s sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit]. So, I had to go to jail, and everything that happened in the country influenced my family and me personally”. 

“So it came naturally to me when I began to write that politics is my material and it just became the background in my novels. Hence, almost all my novels are political and they are connected with the atmosphere of the time. I was very much concerned with the making of modern India, and hence, my novels also exhibit this concern in them”.

“Writing makes one to step out of one’s family or even one’s own country. Both in my fiction as well as in my non-fiction I came up heavily against situations which I couldn’t support”. 

“When my cousin Indira was the Prime Minister, I had to step out, especially during the Emergency. When people asked me how can you go against your own family, I said, I’m defending my own family, but Indira was the one who went against the family”. 

“It was very very painful during the Emergency because I had to face a lot of very difficult situations! Like for example, my fifteen years’ of writing for the Sunday Standard was stopped abruptly”. 

“Even a film based on one of my novels was stopped, because the woman who did the film didn’t want to associate with me! Even a publisher of my novel dropped out. So, it was a difficult and painful time. But I had to do it!”

“Because, it was important for me to protest what the government then was doing! When a country was going wrong, its citizens had to put it right!” 

she quipped, to thunderous applause from the audience.

On asked if she could have been a bit more diplomatic, Sahgal said -

“Rather than being more diplomatic, I could have been less confrontational! One does things in the passion of the moment, frankly and without fear, and later when you think about it, you have your own reservations about it! But, I have no regrets for what I wrote or said!.”

Saying that she was the favourite of all the cousins to Indira Gandhi, who was ten years her senior, Sahgal said -

“We both got along very well, and hence, it was very painful for me to oppose her!” 

But quite soon she added to say that, 

“This is what power does to people! She changed once she came to power! Nehru was not a dynast. He didn’t choose his successor! His party chose! But Indira chose her successor and couldn’t tolerate opposition especially from her own kith and kin!! My sisters and I grew up in Panditji’s house”. 

“He was my third parent. So there was no difference in treatment. We were all one family. Indira was educated in England and Switzerland. So she was away for most of the time. It was only when I began to write political columns, that Indira became very insecure personally, since she was vulnerable to any kind of opposition…!”

Here, Ritu Menon, her biographer added that, 

“Not many can live their personal lives politically. The condition itself is predicated on a painful recognition of who you are, and what you want to be! It was Indira Gandhi’s intention to separate the personal from the political that actually, in a way, incensed her about her cousin’s political commentaries!”.

When asked about her own favourites among all her novels, she said -

“I don’t like all my works. I’ve got my favourites too: Rich Like Us, & Mistaken Identity.”

On freedom of expression, Sahgal reiterated, saying -

“As a new Dark Age descends upon us, it is the collective responsibility of individuals to speak powerfully about the idea of India that we believe in, before it is destroyed before our eyes”!

Justice K. Chandru on Free Speech

The parallel session on “Free Speech in Peril: The Issues at Stake” had the most number of votaries, to a packed audience in the pavilion, where, for want of seats, delegates were even found squatting on the front rows to listen to ardent votaries and champions of freedom of expression. 

The session was moderated by eminent Professor A. R. Venkatachalapathy, and the panelists were: N. Ram, Justice K. Chandru and Sashi Kumar. 

Nirmala Lakshman, [the festival’s curator, and the brain behind the founding of ‘The Hindu’’s Literary Review] deserves special kudos from the blogging fraternity for endorsing, in her welcome address, the extensive coverage of the event by passionate and avid bloggers]. 

Workshop on Publishing & Copy Editing: A Report

A Workshop on Copy Editing and Publishing, was organised by Chevalier T. Thomas Elizabeth College for Women, on 09 January 2015. The workshop threw light on the various facets of publishing and copyediting, with interesting inputs by distinguished veterans in the field, Mrs.Nalini Olivannan, Director, Emerald Publications, and Mrs.Nandhini Iyengar, Senior Copy Editor with Oxford University Press. 

Dr. Nalini Olivannan

The various aspects of Publishing starting from Commissioning, where the publisher decides on the need for a particular book and approaches a writer for the same, to the process of Editing, Production, Marketing, Distribution and Sales were touched upon with illustrations from each domain. 

Mrs. Nalini also elaborated on the book-editing process, and stressed upon the need for the writer-editor sync' which is instrumental for the book to see the light of day in the shortest possible time. 

After the publisher sends it to their Editorial team (who are a list of subject experts), to see if the content of the book fits into their publishing programme, it is then sent to the Developmental Edit section, where the content is developed and sifted for errors. From here, it goes on to the Illustrations department, followed by the line-edit, and then the final manuscript is drawn up. 

A Noble and Laudable Initiative...!

Vehicles – two wheelers and four, of all hues and shades, lined up or rather clogged up the entrance to Hotel Savera, Mylapore, Chennai, on the eventful morning of 07 January 2015. We were a tad late to the programme, and hence we had to squeeze our car in, mustering all the driving skills at our command, to masterfully manoeuvre within the pretty decent car parking lot at our disposal.

Making our way to the first floor of the grand Hotel which houses (or hotels) the Conference Halls we were ushered in by pleasant  and hospitable receptionists who got us our elegantly designed Delegate Badges and professionally made Office files.

It was indeed a packed hall with a beehive of academic activity, with the who’s who of academia being present in full strength.

Symposium in Progress

Teachers, Professors, Headmasters, Principals from various parts of the City and from the State – name them, and they were there. The reason was not hard to seek. They had all come by the dozen to witness and to cheer a noble endeavour from the portals of St. John’s Rajakumar Education and Research Trust: the establishment of a Centre for Teacher Empowerment on St. John’s Public School Campus in order to train inadequate candidates/teachers and empower them with the required skill set, competency and temperament. Academia was there in time (9.30 am) for the Educational Symposium on the theme “Teacher Excellence – School Excellence”.

The programme was divided into two sessions, and the members of the audience were indeed spell-bound by the commitment shown by the visionaries par excellence on the dais, who set paradigms of excellence for the teaching fraternity to emulate and to strive for, in their roles as dispellers of ignorance and nurturers of budding talents.

Dr. Latha Pillai

Rarely does one come across a Centre for Teacher Empowerment, especially in a developing country like India, wherein Teacher Training Institutes have mushroomed in every nook and corner, giving their candidates a richly made up Degree, sans the required skill base. Hence, the real challenge lies, not only in dutifully obtaining a degree in teacher training, but also in the ability to translate competence into performance, or rather, from being competence-based teachers to being performance-driven teachers!

Therein lies the phenomenal success of St. John’s Centre for Teacher Empowerment…!

New Year Greetings..

Dear Students, Colleagues, Friends and Well-wishers,

Wish you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2015.

Best and regards,

Rufus

MIDS Monthly Seminar - December 2014

Topic	Urbanization and Governance in China and India: Informal Settlements, Land Disputes, and Citizen Rights
Speaker	Dr. Xuefei Ren Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Global Urban Studies Program, Michigan State University
Chairperson	Dr. M. Vijayabaskar Assistant Professor MIDS
Date & Time	December 18, 2014     Thursday     3.00 p.m.
Venue	Adiseshiah Auditorium, MIDS

Submission of Essays - Reg

Dear Students of I MA English Literature,

I haven’t forgotten the deadline! J 

And, a big thank you to all of you who’ve submitted your essays online to me. 

Others, who haven’t, please do submit the same by 19 December 2014 to my mail id at rufusonline@gmail.com 

For those of you who are yet to get your topics, contact your class representative Ms. Hela rightaway.

Thank you so much.

God bless.

Rufus

Dr.Juneja on Canadian Literary Culture

'The Colloquium' in Progress

Dr. Joe addressing our students on Theory

The first part of Dr.Joe's lecture was on traditional criticism, and the second part was an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of modern and contemporary literary theory.

Excerpts from his lecture:

Literary History is an irreconcilable binary of theory. M. H. Abrams who is the Father figure of Liberal Humanism, in his famous work The Mirror and the Lamp, brings out the four coordinates of criticism corresponding with four theories.

The first coordinate relates to the primacy of the Universe as the source (or fountainhead) of literature. It was Plato who first talked about the mimetic theory in literature. The word Mimesis is a Greek word meaning imitation. The world that we look around is not real. There is an ideal world – a prototype. So, writers imitate this world (the prototype).

Guest Lecture Invite...:

for two lectures in a row, by two eminent scholars
on Saturday, 09 August 2014.

Dr. Daniel David speaks on 

Myth, Legend and Romance from 9:30 am - 10:45 am.

After a short break for tea and interaction, the second session by 

Dr. Sivaraman, on 

Contemporary Indian Theatre, will start at 11:00 am and end by 12:30 pm. 

All UG, PG, MPhil and PhD Students are welcome...!

"To Write is to Know Who You Are...!"

Mr.Bishwananth Ghosh, Senior Editor, The Hindu, releasing Eclectic Representations

Mr. Bishwanath Ghosh, Senior Editor with The Hindu, was the chief guest at the inaugural of the English Literary Forum, today at 11 am. The occasion saw the release of the seventh issue of Eclectic Representations, the peer-reviewed International Journal from the PG & Research Department of English, Madras Christian College. In addition, a book that guides in effective preparation for UGC-NET-ENGLISH, containing a descriptive overview of literatures in English, alongside a detailed analysis of the previous years’ question papers [paper II & III], titled NET... SET… GO: Literatures in English was released by our Bursar.  

Excerpts from his address: 

Writing is not a glamorous profession. Rather, it is a lonely profession – wherein you might have a deadline staring at you, prompting you to be prepared all along! If you’re lucky enough, you’ll get published, and if you’re still lucky, you’ll also get to be famous!

Release of Seventh Issue of Eclectic Representations and NET Preparatory Book

Our Bursar, releasing the first copy of the UGC English Preparatory Book "NET SET GO... Literatures in English"

Guest Lecture Series - I: An Overview of Literatures in English

Dr. Benet gave the maiden guest lecture of this academic year, today at 11 am, on “Preparing for UGC-NET: A Panoramic View of Literatures in English”.

Excerpts from his lecture: 

Our mind has a way of connecting and associating information. How do we retain pieces of information, and string them together in order to have them recollected in the long run, forms the basis of preparing for any competitive examination.

There are two types of Principles in Memory: One is, the remembrance principle. I ask you and you are quick to respond. The second is the Recognition principle. You look at the answer in print and then you recognise the answer. It really helps if you can raise your memory from recognition principle to the remembrance part.

History of English Literature and History of Literary Criticism are both inseparable. Hence it is important to develop a historical sense of chronological time. Look out for major schools, major writers, major genres etc in your preparation.

'Another Cosmopolitanism' - Ashis Nandy in conversation with NS Madhavan

Ashis Nandy needs no introduction. One of those able few who have the guts and the spine to go threadbare against the establishment (yep, you may call him – antiestablishmentarian if you want), and provide alternate perspectives on cosmopolitanism and traditionalism.

N S Madhavan again is one writer who defies the diktats of the demagogue and seeks to be daring and outspoken in his views – to ‘leave the beaten track behind’ and carve a niche for himself by moving away from tradionalist representations in media and society.

When these two litterateurs indulge themselves in a rendezvous, it indeed is one rendezvous of sorts, and well, the literati are on cloud nine.

Yes, it was indeed a memorable day at the ‘Let’s Talk’ event today, which saw two great luminaries walk the talk on “Another Cosmopolitanism”.

the MC paved the way for the talk by justifying the title for the day: "Why should one speak on cosmopolitanism, of hospitality, of quiet systems: more so in the current context, where we see events of violence and enemity, of hostility instead of hospitality, of conflict instead of coexistence". 

Ashis Nandy observed that, each community has a preconceived notion that they are the best and hence they have a kinda blinkers that make them pass negative comments about the other community. They should also know that the other community also thinks on the same line about them. At the same time, people are accustomed to living with differences, and hence the spice of life.

N S Madhavan lamented the fact that there was a great influx of migrant labourers into Kochi in recent years from Bengal, Bihar and Assam. The people of Kochi had condemned them to ;death by ignorance’, which is a deplorable fact. Hence, these migrants go to the boat jetty, hop onto a boat, go to the park,  and return without talking to the locals. This is mainly because we have shut them out, although we cannot do without them. This is an example of ‘silent apartheid’ he observed.

Both spoke at length about the history of Kochi, about the secular fabric of the nation, and how the secular fabric is being threatened by present political developments, which, according to them, are a serious scar on India’s plurality.

To be contd…

Indian Identity - Critical Summary

“Indian Identity” – Shashi Tharoor

Introduction

Shashi Tharoor is the author of Nehru: The Invention of India, and former under secretary general of the United Nations. In this essay, Tharoor argues that in a secular country like India, everyone of us can be categorized as a minority, when we consider them in relation to their individual standing in society. As such, the essence of India lies in its plurality and it is forged in diversity, which has caught the world’s imagination and of which we Indians should be really proud of.

Kannada Script in Hindi on Independence Day

When India celebrated the 49th anniversary of its independence from British rule in 1996, its then prime minister, HD Deve Gowda, stood at the ramparts of Delhi's Red Fort and delivered the traditional independence day address to the nation. Eight other prime ministers had done exactly the same thing 48 times before him, but what was unusual this time was that Deve Gowda, a southerner from the state of Karnataka, spoke to the country in a language of which he did not know a word. Tradition and politics required a speech in Hindi, so he gave one - the words having been written out for him in his native Kannada script, in which they made no sense.

An Authentication of Pluralism in India

Reading a Kannada Script in Hindi on the Nation’s Independence Day is almost inconceivable elsewhere, but it was a startling affirmation of Indian pluralism. For the simple fact is that we are all minorities in India. There has never been an archetypal Indian to stand alongside the archetypal German or Frenchman. A Hindi-speaking Hindu male from Uttar Pradesh may cherish the illusion he represents the "majority community". But he does not. As a Hindu, he belongs to the faith adhered to by four-fifths of the population. But a majority of the country does not speak Hindi. And, if he were visiting, say, my home state of Kerala, he may be surprised to realise that a majority there is not even male.

Hinduism: No Guarantee of Majorityhood: Reasons

According to Tharoor, when the stock Hindu male mingles with the polyglot, multicoloured crowds thronging any of India's major railway stations, he will realise how much of a minority he really is. Even his Hinduism is no guarantee of his majorityhood, because caste divisions automatically put him in a minority. (If he is a Brahmin, for instance, 90% of his fellow Indians are not.)

Advertising One’s Ethnicity and Origin

If caste and language complicate the notion of Indian identity, ethnicity makes it worse. Most of the time, an Indian's name immediately reveals where he is from or what her mother-tongue is: when we introduce ourselves, we are advertising our origins. Despite some intermarriage at the elite levels in our cities, Indians are still largely endogamous, and a Bengali is easily distinguished from a Punjabi. The difference this reflects is often more apparent than the elements of commonality. A Karnataka Brahmin shares his Hindu faith with a Bihari Kurmi, but they share little identity with each other in respect of their dress, customs, appearance, taste, language or even, these days, their political objectives. At the same time, a Tamil Hindu would feel he has much more in common with a Tamil Christian or a Tamil Muslim than with, say, a Jat from the state of Haryana with whom he formally shares the Hindu religion.

India in 1947: A New Creation

What makes India, then, a nation? As the country celebrates the 60th anniversary of its independence today, we may well ask: What is an Indian's identity?

The prime exponent of modern Indian nationalism, Jawaharlal Nehru, would never have spoken of "creating Indians", because he believed that India and Indians had existed for millennia before he articulated their political aspirations in the 20th century. None the less, the India that was born in 1947 was in a very real sense a new creation: a state that made fellow citizens of the Ladakhi and the Laccadivian, divided Punjabi from Punjabi and asked a Keralite peasant to feel allegiance to a Kashmiri Pandit ruling in Delhi, all for the first time.

Indian Nationalism: the Nationalism of an Idea

Under Mahatma Gandhi and Prime Minister Nehru, Indian nationalism was not based on any of the conventional indices of national identity. Not language, since India's constitution now recognises 22 official languages, and as many as 35 languages spoken by more than a million people each. Not ethnicity, since the "Indian" accommodates a diversity of racial types in which many Indians (Punjabis and Bengalis, in particular) have more ethnically in common with foreigners than with their other compatriots. Not religion, since India is a secular pluralist state that is home to every religion known to mankind, with the possible exception of Shintoism. Not geography, since the natural geography of the subcontinent - framed by the mountains and the sea - was hacked by the partition of 1947. And not even territory, since, by law, anyone with one grandparent born in pre-partition India - outside the territorial boundaries of today's state - is eligible for citizenship. Indian nationalism has therefore always been the nationalism of an idea.

India: Sustained by a Pluralist Democracy

It is the idea of an ever-ever land - emerging from an ancient civilisation, united by a shared history, sustained by pluralist democracy. India's democracy imposes no narrow conformities on its citizens. The whole point of Indian pluralism is you can be many things and one thing: you can be a good Muslim, a good Keralite and a good Indian all at once. The Indian idea is the opposite of what Freudians call "the narcissism of minor differences"; in India we celebrate the commonality of major differences. If America is a melting-pot, then to me India is a thali, a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast.

India: One Land Embracing Many

So the idea of India is of one land embracing many. It is the idea that a nation may endure differences of caste, creed, colour, conviction, culture, cuisine, costume and custom, and still rally around a consensus. And that consensus is around the simple idea that in a democracy you don't really need to agree - except on the ground rules of how you will disagree.

Conclusion

According to Shashi Tharoor, the true identity of India lies in its plurality and in its celebration of diversity. The sight in May 2004 of a Roman Catholic political leader (Sonia Gandhi) making way for a Sikh (Manmohan Singh) to be sworn in as prime minister by a Muslim (President Abdul Kalam) - in a country 81% Hindu - caught the world's imagination. India's founding fathers wrote a constitution for their dreams; we have given passports to their ideals. That one simple moment of political change put to rest many of the arguments over Indian identity. India was never truer to itself than when celebrating its own diversity.

"The Eloquent Sounds of Silence" - Critical Summary

The Eloquent Sounds of Silence - Pico Iyer

Introduction

God’s one and only voice is silence, says Melville. Pico Iyer brings out the importance of silence in his essay “The Eloquent Sounds of Silence” by singing paeans to silence. According to Pico Iyer, when people go on retreat, to a high place and feel the warmth and joy of being lifted up in a cool and secure place far away from the madding crowd, they start to recite the standard litany: that silence is sunshine, silence is rapture, silence is golden, etc. But silence is not so easily won. 

Moreover, before rushing off to the hills, it is essential to remember that fool's gold (i.e the easily obtained iron pyrite) is much more common and that gold can be obtained only by a great amount of hard work, since it has to be dug out with great care and effort, from other substances. Such is the case with silence.

Silence is the Consecration of the Universe

According to Herman Melville, all profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence, and hence silence is the general consecration of the universe. Just before his death, he came forth with his final utterance -- the luminous tale of Billy Budd - and showed that silence is only as worthy as what we can bring back from it.

Silence is Spiritual

We have to strive a lot to earn silence, and then, to work for it: to make it not an absence but a presence in our lives. Silence is something more than just a pause; it is that enchanted place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands. 

In silence, we often say, we can hear ourselves think; but what is truer to say is that in silence we can hear ourselves not think, and so sink below ourselves into a place far deeper than mere thought allows. In silence, we might better say, we can hear someone else think.

It is no coincidence that places of worship are places of silence: if idleness is the devil's playground, silence may be the angels'. It is no surprise that silence is an anagram of license. And it is only right that Quakers all but worship silence, for it is the place where everyone finds his God, however he may express it. Silence is an ecumenical state, beyond the doctrines and divisions created by the mind. If everyone has a spiritual story to tell of his life, everyone has a spiritual silence to preserve.

Silence: The Highest Tribute to Holiness

Silence is the ultimate tribute we pay to holiness; we slip off words when we enter a sacred space, just as we slip off shoes. A "moment of silence" is the highest honor we can pay someone; it is the point at which the mind stops and something else takes over (words run out when feelings rush in). A "vow of silence" is for holy men the highest devotional act. We hold our breath, we hold our words; we suspend our chattering selves and let ourselves "fall silent," and fall into the highest place of all.

Increasing Noise in the World

The world is getting noisier these days: in Japan, which may be a model of our future, cars and buses have voices, doors and elevators speak. The answering machine talks to us, and for us, somewhere above the din of the TV; the Walkman preserves a public silence but ensures that we need never -- in the bathtub, on a mountaintop, even at our desks -- be without the clangor of the world. White noise becomes the aural equivalent of the clash of images, the nonstop blast of fragments that increasingly agitates our minds. As Ben Okri, the young Nigerian novelist, puts it, "When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity's chief instrument."

A Place for Noise vs A Place for Silence

According to Pico Iyer, there is a place for noise in our daily lives. There is a place for roaring, for the shouting exultation of a baseball game, for hymns and spoken prayers, for orchestras and cries of pleasure. 

Silence, like all the best things, is best appreciated in its absence: if noise is the signature tune of the world, silence is the music of the other world, the closest thing we know to the harmony of the spheres. But the greatest charm of noise is when it ceases. In silence, suddenly, it seems as if all the windows of the world are thrown open and everything is as clear as on a morning after rain. Silence, ideally, hums. It charges the air.

Silence: The Ultimate Moment when we Begin to Trust Ourselves

Silence, then, could be said to be the ultimate province of trust: it is the place where we trust ourselves to be alone; where we trust others to understand the things we do not say; where we trust a higher harmony to assert itself. We all know how treacherous are words, and how often we use them to paper over embarrassment, or emptiness, or fear of the larger spaces that silence brings. 

"Words, words, words" commit us to positions we do not really hold, the imperatives of chatter; words are what we use for lies, false promises and gossip. We babble with strangers; with intimates we can be silent. We "make conversation" when we are at a loss; we unmake it when we are alone, or with those so close to us that we can afford to be alone with them.

Conclusion

Thus Pico Iyer brings out the necessity and the importance of silence in our day-to-day lives by equating silence with the realm of the spiritual, the transcendental and as the ultimate tribute to holiness. It is also the moment when we begin to trust ourselves, by refraining from meaningless chatter that we use for lies, false promises and gossip. He concludes with his famous statement: “In love, we are speechless; in awe, we say, words fail us”, emphasizing and reiterating on the importance of silence in a person’s life.

Existentialism in 'Waiting for Godot': An Overview

Prof. Daniel David addressing our PG Students