Congrats!

A record eight of our students, past and present, have cleared the SET for Lecturers. Our hearty congratulations to all of you who have cleared it. It was a well-deserved success. The Department of English extends a red-carpet welcome to you. Keep up the spirit. God bless you.

Meeting of the Editorial Board

Members of the Editorial Board of Eclectic Representations [17 May 2012]

A meeting of the Editorial Board of Eclectic Representations was held at the Selaiyur Hall Guest Room, Madras Christian College, on Thursday, 17 May 2012 at 10:20 am. All the members who were present, gave valuable suggestions and ideas to further the cause of the Journal. It was decided that Members of the Board who were not present, be given the minutes of the Board meeting through email. The meeting started at 10:20 am and ended at 12:20 pm. We thank all the members of the Board for their enthusiastic involvement in the affairs of Eclectic Representations.

My alma mater - A Student's Reminiscences

Three months to go. Reflecting on my two years at MCC, I can’t help but marvel at the way my perspectives, opinions and principles have sharpened. 

As I entered the College gates to enroll for the masters programme in English Literature little did I know that I would go out of those very gates a more confident, sensitive and strong woman than when I entered. The beautiful and breath-taking campus seems to whisper to everyone who enters her gates. It is a whisper that beckons you, a whisper that gently draws out an individual’s

The legendary Professor Bennet Albert - A Tribute

A Memoir and A Tribute

[by the inimitable Prof. Robert Burns, 1977-78]

Of the many sandy walks that crisscross our lovely Campus, one leads straight from the portico of the College main building to the Selaiyur gate. If, quitting the above-mentioned edifice you should take this road, you can keep going till you reach the Indian Overseas Bank and ask the manager to raise your overdraft; or, you can turn sharply to your right, half-way along, and ultimately arrive at Selaiyur Hall where, of nights, the only television set on Campus dispenses sound cultural entertainment, and literature classes are conducted of a morning. (No one turns to the left because this isn't the shortest distance to St.Thomas' or the main gate, and we of MCC are averse to needless exercise of any description.) Down the road, and around this corner, at about 9 a.m. on a day in early August 1970 Professor Albert stalked into our lives. 

Down Memory Lane with Prof.Bennet Albert

College Day Report [1977 – 78]

(by Professor Bennet Albert, Professor of English & Principal, Madras Christian College)

Friends, I wish to welcome first of all the new graduates of the year. We are very glad that they are here with us this evening. All of us have a share in their concern as to what their future is going to be. Let us hope that out of this concern that all of us feel some good may evolve, and the skills they developed in College may be made use of for the benefit of all. 

Let me welcome next our Chief Guest Mr. E. C. P. Prabakar and Mrs. Lily Prabakar. Mr. Prabakar is a very senior I.A.S Officer and he serves now as Commissioner and Secretary to the Board of Revenue in Tamil Nadu. Once again we have an Old Boy as our Chief Guest. Mr. Prabakar did his B.Sc Chemistry in our College from 1942 – 44, and he was both a good student and a good sportsman, combining in himself brain and brawn. He played cricket and hockey for the College and University, and, in the case of cricket, for the State as well. We have a trophy  named after Mr. Prabakar, meant for the best all-rounder in athletics and academics – but for the past two years there has been no award: obviously, Prabakar are rare, and so the next time the award may go to some young lady who combines in herself brain, brawn and charm!

New framework for UGC-NET 2012

The National Eligibility Test (NET) conducted by University Grants Commission (UGC), undergoes a drastic change from 2012 onwards. Students who have had problems with writing long, descriptive essays can now breathe easy. All the three papers have now been made objective. The first objective type NET exam is to be held on Sunday, 24 June 2012. 

II BA Rhetoric - Internal Marks

Dear Student of II BA English Lit., 

Before you start working on your assignment, ask yourself this simple question: “Does your dissertation have a valid claim to “an original contribution to the domain of knowledge?”. Dr. Joseph Dorairaj, a beloved friend and a great scholar, makes repeated emphasis on these two phrases “original contribution” and “domain of knowledge”.

This morning, we were in conversation with a renowned professor from a reputed University in Thailand, Dr. Rajeevnath, who happened to visit his alma mater - MCC. He said that, in Thailand, as in some other countries, “Literature is a luxury,” as they view English more from a language point of view than from the literature point of view.

By luxury we mean, not everyone can afford it. By all means, Literature is a luxury. Yes! 

Will books soon become out-fashioned? (Student Assignment)

Books – the best friend of man! Can they ever be out-fashioned? Well the technology and the World Wide Web might replace newspapers with e-papers, magazines with e-magazines, paperbacks and novels with e-books. But who can deny the joy of feeling the paper in one’s hand and turning it page after page.

Is the law easier on celebrities? (Student Assignment)

It is not uncommon to find celebrity faces flashing on the TV screens. It is shocking only when they are flashed for some crime that they’ve committed. Be it Paris Hilton driving under influence or Sanjay Dutt’s illegal weapon or Salman Khan’s poaching, when they flash on the TV screens, there is really nothing else that matters in the NEWS. Live coverage of this is what in the main agenda.

Should 21 be the legal driving age? (Student Assignment)

First, the question that needs to be asked is, are we, the youth of this country, responsible drivers?

Going by statistics, evidently not.

The highest number of road accidents occur to people belonging in the age group of 17 to 25. We see it everyday, right? Some irresponsible person on a bike meandering through traffic at 150 kms/ hr while the the rest (including cars, buses, trucks) are ambling along at a steady pace of 20, maximum 40 or 60. This, of course, raises questions about 18-year-olds being too young to drive or ride bikes, therefore there is a need to protect them by restricting their road privileges. An interesting fact to note is that if the legal driving age was increased, there is a significant economic benefit as well. This is because there is huge reduction in petrol consumption.

Do Youngsters learn from their elders or is it the other way round?” (Student Assignment)

Before I started to writing this I just wanted to be on one side i.e; either elders or youngsters but later I came to realize people in life are not fully perfect. At each stage he/she is learning something from something from someone that may be either elders people can teach or convey their own experience and the younger people can teach elder people by their innocent, pure and intellectual thought.

Euthanasia - Should the Right to Die be Granted? (Student Assignment)

O,death the poor man's friend

The kindest and the best

                       -Burns (MAN WAS  MADE TO MOURN)                                                                                                                                                        

The above lines glorify death as a poor man's kindest and best friend. According to Burns a man is forced to befriend death due to the sole reason that he is poor. But friends, death being the ultimate reality can anyone befriend it? What do you say? Here comes the topic for the day

Before going on for the discussion i would like to ask you the meaning of the word Euthanasia?

Mobile Phones in Schools / Colleges: Should we ban them? (Student Assignment)

For long the use of mobile phones in classes have been considered as a vital threat to the system of education, but for as far as the student may be considered, the mobile phone tends to open a new doorway to isolated and some reliably accurate educative facilities such as the internet and the now available touch screen phones that provide faster shorthand notes, that almost anyone who uses a mobile phone can make use of.

Should Death Penalty be Abolished? (Student Assignment)

A SATIRE ON INDUCTION:  

An inspection of deadly woes

 

Imagine a tightly tied noose hanging in front of you...imagine putting your head inside it...imagine the cords tightly wrung around your neck, choking, suffocating you...imagine the chilly pangs of impending death moving through your veins & you see faces most beloved to you & are reminded that death is not a beholden stranger anymore...imagine life departing from your being & everything fades, fades away into oblivion...now tell me, would you submit your worst of enemies to this plight if it were in your hands to decide so? 

Should Death Penalty be Abolished? (Student Assignment)

Death Penalty: Should it be abolished? - is the biggest, the oldest and the highly debated issue, to which no proper solution have till now been arrived at.

‘Death Penalty’ is said to have existed in India, even before independence. Even after the independence-during the drafting of the constitution-despite all oppositions, it was retained. From then on, Death Penalty has been inviting mixed response.  Some people have been for it, while the other group stays against it; and each have their own set of justifications for their stand. I am one among those who are against it. The following are the points to validate it

Written Exams alone serve no useful purpose! (Student Assignments)

We have been giving examinations from the day we learnt to write. How many of us would have questioned the effectiveness of exams? We have always confined ourselves to learning only those lessons taught to us in classrooms. Exams should not only be about what is inside the book but also what is outside.

II BA English - Assignment on Rhetoric - Reg

Paper: Prosody and Rhetoric

The following is the list of students who have e-submitted their assignments.

Name                                    Date of Submission         No. of Words

Manivannan, G.                27 March 2012                    272

Christy Jenila                      29 March 2012                   1335

Nikhila, S                             30 March 2012                   311

Jasmine, G                           30 March 2012                   207

Sandhiya, M                       30 March 2012                   220

Akilandeshwari, M          30 March 2012                   234

Angel Ezhilarasi, K          30 March 2012                   211

Jagadeesh, K                       30 March 2012                   277

Subhashini                          30 March 2012                   525

Vivek                                     30 March 2012                    -   (No files attached)

Sharadha Devi, S               30 March 2012                   649

Nilavarasan, T                   31 March 2012                   359

Kaveri Murthy                    31 March 2012                   1073

Renjini Mariyam               02 April 2012                      482

Sruti, MD                             03 April 2012                      510

Ruth Samuel                       03 April 2012                      578

Shiny Teresa                       03 April 2012                      701

Daisy                                     03 April 2012                      2200

Mariya Anjalin, L.             04 April 2012                      1100

Jeevan Sajan                        04 April 2012                      500

Abisha Selva Sharon        04 April 2012                      1340
Pema                                      04 April 2012                      529
Jeon Kyuwon                       04 April 2012                      429
Jisha Anna Jose                  05 April 2012                      1000

All assignments will be checked for plagiarism, and marks will be awarded based on the following five criteria: originality, creativity, word-length, presentation and date of submission. The last date for submission was 02 April 2012.

And, remember, this Assignment substitutes One CIA!
All assignments will be uploaded onto the blog after the teacher's evaluation.


With all best wishes, 

Rufus 
Course Teacher

II BA English - Assignment on Rhetoric - Reg

Dear Students of II BA English,

Today is your last date for submission of your Assignment, as part of your I CIA on Rhetoric. So far, I've got 17 assignments in my mail box, and still counting.I wish to reiterate, what i've said earlier, that no possible extension of the deadline will be given. So, make sure you submit your assignments by tonight. The mail id is: rufusonline@gmail.com

With all best wishes,

Rufus

II CIA - Reg

Dear Students of I BSc Pbt/Zoo (Reg),

As announced earlier, you will be tested based on all the prescribed poems/essays with special focus on the novel Animal Farm. The Internal Test will be held at the same venue in which you wrote your I CIAs.

II BA English Literature students are expected to submit your assignments (as part of your I CIA) on or before Friday, 30 March 2012, failing which you will be forfeiting your marks for the same. All your assignments on Oratory should be in the form of MS Word, 1.5 spacing, Times New Roman, and sent to me as an email attachment at rufusonline@gmail.com. For an overview of the topics, kindly click on this link here

With all best wishes,

Rufus
Course teacher

UGC Seminar - A Report

The UGC-Sponsored One-day National Seminar got off to a grand start on Monday, 12 March 2012 at 9 am at the Centre for Media Studies Auditorium. The key-note address by Prof. K. Srilata, IITM, tuned the audience to the theme of the session - Post-Independence Indian Writing in English: Theory and Praxis. The second issue of our Peer-reviewed Journal 'Eclectic Representations' was released by the key-note speaker on the occasion. There were in all sixteen paper presenters, who did great presentations, and answered questions (sometimes irritating questions too) with aplomb and dignity. 

The cream of the afternoon session  was the valedictory address by Dr. Premila Paul, Associate Professor of English, The American College, Madurai. She had all the minds and hearts spellbound by her rapturous insights into the various facets of Post-Independence Indian Writing in English. The book Mapping Territories, containing papers of the participants, was released by Dr. Premila Paul, while Dr. Shanthi Manuel, Member of the Board, released the Student' initiative 'Cornucopia'.

Students' performance was the icing on the cake. Radha and Arul Jyoti performed a dance recital, and students of II MA English (Anki & Shruti) gave a soulful rendition of patriotic songs followed by our National Anthem. The national integration video 'Mile sur mera tumhara' was screened towards the end of the afternoon session. 

Dr. K. Ganesh presented the Vote of Thanks.

Shashi Tharoor's take on 'why engineers become terrorists.!'

An IIT graduate - so the story goes - is walking near a pond one day when a frog speaks to him. "Kiss me," it says, "and i will turn into a beautiful princess." The IITian does a double-take, turns back to check if he has heard right, and sure enough, the frog repeats itself: "Kiss me and i will turn into a beautiful princess." He looks thoughtfully at the frog, picks it up and puts it into his pocket. A plaintive wail soon emerges: "Kiss me and i will turn into a beautiful princess." He ignores it and walks on. Soon the frog asks, "Aren't you going to kiss me?" The IIT guy stops, pulls the frog out of his pocket, and replies matter-of-factly: "I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend. But a talking frog is cool." 

No prizes for guessing what a literature graduate would have done in the same situation! Such is the self-image of the engineer in India: rational, hard-working, self-disciplined, steady, focused on the results of his work. Parents pray for the smartest of their kids to become engineers. Any child with better than average marks in science at school is pushed towards the profession, sustained by peer pressure that convinces him there could be no higher aspiration.

And no doubt for some there isn't. But that clearly isn't the whole story. Disturbing new research at Oxford University by sociologists Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog points to an intriguing - one might say worrying - correlation between engineering and terrorism.

If that doesn't raise eyebrows at the IITs, nothing will. But consider the evidence: Osama bin Laden was a student of engineering. So were the star 9/11 kamikaze pilot Mohammed Atta, the alleged mastermind of that plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and their all-but-forgotten predecessor, the chief plotter of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef.

AKARA 2012 @ MCC

The Annual Literary Fiesta of The English Association, MCC - Akāra 2012 is round the corner! The theme this year is Children’s Literature. The event will host intercollegiate competitions on the first day and workshops and interactive sessions are scheduled for the second day.

Events on Day 1 (Monday, March 5)

9 am to 11 am: Prayer – Welcome address – Principal’s address – Keynote address by the Guest of Honour Ms. Sandhya Rao of Tulika Books (http://www.tulikabooks.com)

11 am to 1.30 pm: Competitions

1.30 pm to 2 pm: Lunch break

2 pm to 4 pm: Competitions

4 pm to 5 pm: Felicitation and Prize Distribution

Enterprise - Nissim Ezekiel Critical Appreciation

Enterprise – Nissim Ezekiel

Introduction:

Enterprise by Nissim Ezekiel is a satiric poem with a moral. It deals with pilgrimages which serve no useful purpose. The poet suggests that religious pilgrimages are a waste and snobbish. In ‘Enterprise’ which contains the two central metaphors of his poetry – pilgrimage and home – Ezekiel reveals his attitude of commitment. Besides, according to him, to please God one need not go on pilgrimages as He is within.

A Pilgrimage: Without Getting the Call:

The poem is in the form of a narrative. The narrator, the poet explains how he and some others started on a pilgrimage. The aim of the pilgrimage was to ennoble the minds and to make the burdens light. The pilgrimage had no hitch, to start with. While, at the second stage, they did not know whether they got a call at all. Obviously, they had started casually, and impulsively. It was very hot and they were unable to beat the heat. Thus they were physically unfit for the pilgrimage.

Mission Misunderstood by the Pilgrims:

The pilgrims visited various places of interest on the way and took down notes on the very humdrum aspects of life and on curiosities. Thus, ironically, the pilgrimage had started with a distraction. Obviously, the pilgrims had misunderstood their mission. Soon, differences arose among the members of the team over silly matters. The best intellectual among them left the team egotistically. This made the team gloomy.

Mist - M.T. Vasudevan Nair - Summary

Mist – M.T.Vasudevan Nair

The word anticipation would perhaps best describe the human condition today. The paramount anticipation for us is the next moment. What will that next moment bring? Will it bring pleasure or pain? Will it be perceived as good or bad, etc? Will it be filled with life or death? It is anticipation, the expectancy or the needing to know, needing to figure out, needing to understand, needing an answer that very simply is a root cause of all of our suffering.

When we anticipate something pleasurable, no matter what that is, be it a positive outcome, a positive relationship, we begin a prefabricated illusion that what we want and desire should happen to us.

The fragile mists of memories, emotions, and time weave through this haunting narrative, as the author takes us through the mindscape of the lead character of this novella – Vimala Devi. Vimala and Sudhir had once shared a passionate affair filled with promises. But nine years have passed as she continues to wait for a letter, a phone call, or a visit from him. Sharing her anticipation, is the boatman Buddhu, who is searching for his White father with the aid of only a faded photograph. Finally the story hovers around a sardarji, anticipating his death because of lung-cancer.

The Story in Brief:

Vimala Devi, was a 31 yr old Resident Tutor at a boarding school for Girls in the Kumaon Hill region of Uttar Pradesh.

It was April, and summer vacation had started in the boarding school and the boarders were leaving one by one in the last two days.

On the slope of the hill, beyond the boundaries of the boarding school was a cottage which was rented out to tourists. It was called “Golden Hook”. Just outside the “Golden Hook” was the meandering road on the slopes of the hill.

Signatures on the Sea Shore - C. Narayana Reddy

Poem Analysis

C. Narayana Reddy's tryst with words of wisdom is echoed beautifully in the first stanza of the poem. He tries to make a mark for himself in the whole ocean of universal art. In the process, he finds his imprints on sand being washed away by the white horse of waves with the hooves of the surf. The white horse symbolically refers to the incarnation of god himself, who helps him in the process of poetic creation. In short, the divine muse who inspires the poet is God himself manifested in the form of the white horse through the frothing waves of the ocean. The waves here symbolise unsettled emotions or emotional disturbances that prevent a thought from being born.

On entering the threshold of poetry, the poet is literally flabbergasted at the enormous waves that seek to rub against his signature.

In line 6, the poet draws sustenance for his poetry from the ocean which contains the elements of language needed to weave a fine piece of poem. It is language that comes from the soul, (not from the mind) that forms the body of his poetry, which is beautifully explicated in the lines “the anguish of my soul rises from the ocean”.

In his persistent attempt to win over the domain of the ocean of language, the poet deftly uses the image of the cavalry – (soldiers who fought mounted on horseback), and lays siege to the unnumbered melodies and thus gathers them together into a chant – a harmonious and rhythmical melody. The word “chant” indicates the divine nature of the inspiration, which the poet has obtained in his tryst with the universal art.

In line 14, the poet uses the knitting imagery, where he finds a harmonious knitting together of the waves in the ocean and the vapours of his heart. It speaks of the transcendental nature of the communion between man and nature that he has been able to create in his poems. The line “no, you can’t understand” speaks of the highly personal yet mystical nature of the experience of the poet which none else can fathom or try to understand.

In the penultimate stanza, the poet alludes to his inspiration and enthusiasm that he has got now, as a froth bubbling on and on, like the waves of the sea. Even though they are insignificant and very soft like the cotton, they are always there to give him the necessary spark and illumination to carve a fine piece of poem.