Written Traces

Hey!  Four months, no see? Just kidding.  I have been out and about for a while, and when I finally came back and settled in, I just got too lazy, or should I say creatively unmotivated, to journal.  The last time we caught up was in February, and honestly, I have been a bit under the weather for the past couple of months. Speaking of which, I recently went through my life's second operation, and it was for the most ridiculous reason.  Before that, let me ask you a question, "Have you ever paid the price of doing something right ?" Because that's where my story begins. I have, quite literally, become the victim of maintaining basic oral hygiene. Like most people trying to maintain good oral hygiene, I brushed my teeth diligently. Unfortunately, I took that commitment a little too seriously.  Brushing your teeth is good, but things took an awry turn when I brushed too hard, especially with a hand as steady as Ross Geller's marriages. (I'm assuming you have watc...

Author’s Note: There are places we reach because someone we love knows the way. When they are gone, the road remains, but the certainty doesn’t. I don't remember the road that leads to a particular destination. As someone who takes the seat of a passenger, my only job is to sit back and pass the time it takes to reach from source to destination. That being said, I take immense pleasure in giving my absolute surrender to the hands of my father, who takes the wheel to get me to the destination we both shared. It is always at the destination of TTPS, where my father served, and the source is Puri. Yet not once did I bother to memorise the road. I remember only a few landmarks, a few habitual stoppages where we would pause along the way. Nothing more. The rest of the journey was spent in the comfort of being driven. The reason I am being so elaborate is that I don't remember whether it is after the passing of my father or before, but I used to have a very particular nightmare. Kind...

  About the Novelist Anita Desai was an Indian English novelist and a professor of humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Born in Mussoorie in 1937 as Anita Mazumder to a German immigrant mother and a Bengali businessman father. Desai completed her higher secondary in the Queen Mary’s higher secondary school. Later she received her B.A. in English from Miranda House of the University of Delhi. She has been thrice shortlisted for the Booker Prize and also the recipient of the prestigious Sahity Akademi Award in 1978 for her novel “Fire on the Mountain”. She won the British Guardian Prize for “The Village By the Sea”. She is also on the advisory board of the Lalit Kala Akademi. She is married to Ashvin Desai and the mother of the Booker Prize winning novelist Kiran Desai. Influenced by Emily Bronte, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf and so on. She read Wuthering Heights at the age of 9. Important works  The Zigzag Way The Artist of Disappearance Ba...

  Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004) The literature of early Indian English novel is identified especially with the trinity of Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao.  They all began writing in the thirties of the 20th century. Out of which Mulk Raj Anand is the object of our consideration. He was born in 1905 in Peshawar, now in Pakistan to a Kshatriyas family.  His father was Lal Chand , a Silversmith turned sepoy who had left his hereditary occupation to attend school. Later he learnt English, took a British military examination and served in cantonments as a head clerk.  He was highly ambitious of his son, both in education and economic status. From his father, Anand inherited the artisan's industry and minute attention to detail. Also the revolutionary temperament. Anand's mother was a religious lady with a knack for storytelling.  Anand attended Khalsa College, Amritsar after completing his matriculation.  Later, graduated from Punjab University with honou...

  Henry Louis Vivian Derozio: The Harp of India & My Country! In Thy Day of Glory Past Both are Sonnets and nationalist poem. Harp is a musical instrument, the enterprise of the entire Indian civilization is being compared, if symbolically, with the Harp. It is about the sorry condition of the Harp. The Harp and it’s melodies music, which was once played by the past musicians, in this case of the countrymen of the past, is now remains in silence. The poet ends it with a question that if the notes of the past i.e the lost glory of the past i.e the debilitating decline of the culture India can be revived ?  If so , then he very much would like to be one of those who have the honour in the revival of the glory.  He uses the idea of past glory only to stress the present decay. Both poems has forward looking, inspirational aspect. Brave attempt to face the future with hope Themes:- Decline glory of the country Possible revival The poet’s own role in it Tory Dutt : The Lo...

ABOUT THE WRITER Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1834-1910), popularly known as Mark Twain, was an American writer, humourist, publisher and lecturer. He was lauded as “the greatest humourist the United States has produced” and entitled with “the father of American Literature” by William Faulkner.  Before Twain, the language used in producing literature in America was that of the puritanical i.e polished and refined as in the case of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Thus, the language missed the mark of exploring the ruggedness of the country. He was the first person in the history of American literature to ever use the regional dialect in a work of fiction. Very appropriately remarked by Earnest Hemmingway, " there were nothing like Mark Twain and there will not be anything quite like him". Twain was born in Florida, Missouri to John Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton. However, at the age of three the family moved to Hannibal where Twain was raised. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, assumed the name o...

THE GREAT MIGRATION (FIRST IN 1620 THEN A GREAT SCALE MIGRATION IN 1630) It has roots with the dethronment of the Roamn Catholic Church and the emergence of Church of England. Within the church of England began further division and with the division began puritanism  Before in America it already started in England In England, it was called protestantism and it produced the church of England or the Anglican Church. For many the reformation wasn't enough to end the corruption in church. THE DIVISION :  From the Church of England emerged two groups of believers Pilgrims and Puritans Pilgrims completely wanted to separate themselves from the church of England. Therefore, they also been referred to as separatist. Puritan wanted to reform the church of England by staying inside the church. Thus they are called the non-separtist. B RADFORD & THE PILGRIMS (1620) In 1620, the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England with Willam Bradford and 101 other pilgrims.  The original d...

About the Author Arun Joshi (1939-1993) • One of the major Indian English writer of the contemporary time. • Educated in both India and U.S.A • Primarily an existentialist writer and his writing was in line with Albert Camus and Franz Kafka. • Existentialism : a twentieth century literary movement which challenged the established order of the universe as a moral absolute system. Instead, it pointed out,  ‘’The aimless existence of man who is indifferent to everything and alien to everybody, a delirious effect brought upon to the life of man due to the forces of industrialisation and urbanization.’’ • Arun Joshi’s writings are the Indian variety of existentialism which examines the human psyche trapped in the matrix of decaying values. • The distinctive feature of his writing is the duality of selves i.e. the native consciousness and the acquired consciousness. • Joshi’s fiction encounters the cultural conflicts of tradition and transition and the juxtaposition of materialistic, r...