Hello, I am Himanshi Parmar, student of MK Bhavnagar University. This blog i have written as a response to Thinking Activity, assigned by Yesha bhatt ma'am. Click to read teacher's blog. The task is a Part of my academic Work. Which we get after each unit. In this blog, i am going to discuss about several questions related to prose writers and poets.
Task - 1 (Three Prose Writers)
1] Write a note on S. Radhakrishnan's perspective on Hinduism.
Full name of Radhakrishnan is Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.He was born on 5 September 1888, and died on 17 April 1975. He was an Indian philosopher and politician who served as the 2nd President of India from 1962 to 1967 and 1st Vice President of India from 1952 to 1962. He was also the 2nd Ambassador of India to Soviet Union from 1949 to 1952 & 4th Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University from 1939 to 1948. Read more about him here. (Click)
Radhakrishnan described his views on Hinduism in his book 'The Hindu View of Life'. He began the book with question and answer that what Hinduism actually means. According to him Hinduism isn’t an internally recognized word, but a name given to the sub-continent of India by outsiders. Backbone of Hindu culture are recognized as a Vedas. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan believes that Faith is most important in Hinduism, faith is like a vision of the soul. One can feel spiritual power with faith. Faith help us to understand spiritual part of life. Where physical sense helps to understand only material world.The mind has two powers, reason and intuition. Reason correlates with the physical senses, intuition with faith. The Vedas are a collection of the intuitions of the soul, which became the spiritual intuitions which founded the cohesive Hinduism.
In Hinduism, There are various paths to god.all people believe in their own path. And that's the reason according to Radhakrishnan that we don't just have Vedas but also has many books like Puaranas, Ramayana, Mahabharata etc. This is the Reason that we all have our own path to god and their beliefs on God which based on their own personal experience with religion and god.
A majority of Hindus do not advocate fully the idea of Maya (the belief that the world is an illusion). However, it is held by Samkara who is often seen as holding the ‘standard’ type of Hindu thought. He had several reasons for advocating the doctrine of Maya including: 1) The manifold of experience is incomplete, and we are unable to unify it, 2) Time and space cannot be rounded into one whole, 3) That which is real must be exempt from change, and nothing empirical seems to be exempt from change. Radhakrishnan emphasized that the world was independent of Brahman, but not completely. Logically, we cannot rationalize the relationship of God and the world, so he says we should hold on to both. Agnosticism is the only logical conclusion.
Radhakrishnan also taked about Moksa, Moksa is ‘spiritual realization’. It means ‘release’, and is our self-made spiritual emancipation from samsara (perpetual rebirth). There are three ways of attaining moksa, 1) Wisdom, 2)Devotion, 3) Servitude.Radhakrishnan says that “Hinduism has no sympathy with the view that ‘to mix religion and business is to spoil two good things’. We ought not to banish spiritual values from life”. He also taked about cast conflict in Hinduism. Read more here.
2] "The autobiography of an unknown Indian" is 'more of a national than personal history'. Explain.
The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian is well known autobiographical book of Indian writer Nirad C. Chaudhuri. The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian is divided into four books, each of which consists of a preface and four chapters. The first book is titled "Early Environment" and its four chapters are: 1) My Birth Place, 2) My Ancestral Place, 3) My Mother's Place and 4) England. He wrote this book when he was 50 year old. The book records his life from his birth. He was born in 1897 in Kishoreganj, a small town in present-day Bangladesh. The book also depicts his mental and intellectual development. The book is more national than personal as it is also showing Nirad Chaudhuri's life and growth in Calcutta, his observations of vanishing landmarks, the connotation of this is dual—changing Indian situation and historical forces that was making exit of British from India an imminent affair. Main subject of the book is Comparative– historical, cultural and sociological analysis of early 20th century India and the British colonial encounter in India.
Tge book is by nature an account of autobiography yet it is more concerned with the story of the struggle of a civilization with a hostile environment in which the destiny of the British rule become necessarily involved. It is about the maturity of a scholar’s mind in that environment. It seeks to show how the mind and character of a typical Indian were made, shaped and quickened by the same British rule.Nirad describes in details the life in Calcutta, the different sections of society both Bengali and English, the missions of the rich and the houses of the middle class. The book also describes the advent of Gandhi on the sense and Nirad’s disillusionment with Gandhi’s passive resistance movement because it degenerated into mob-violence.Nirad Chaudhuri concludes his “Autobiography” with his views of “Indian History”. He believes that that the tropical land of India has ever been a corrupting influence on its people. Last words of Nirad are, 'It is more of a national than personal history'.
Task - 2 (The New Poets)
1] Write a note on How Kaikini differs from other Indian poets in his poems.
Jayant Kaikini is one of the most significant of the younger writers in Kannada today. He is a well known writer of short stories, film scripts and poetry, and is based in Bangalore. He was born in Gokarn, an idyllic beach town of coastal Karnataka. His father, Gourish Kaikini, a schoolteacher, was an eminent Kannnada litterateur and mother Shanta, a social worker. He also received many awards like,Karnataka Sahitya Academy award for his first poetry collection at the age of nineteen in 1974. The same award again in 1982, 1989 and 1996 for his short story collections. He has been also awarded the Dinakar Desai award for his poetry, the B. H. Sridhar award for fiction, as well as the Katha National award and Rujuwathu trust fellowship for his creative writing. Read more about Jayant Kaikini here, Click.
Kaikini has published many of poetry collections including Rangadindondishtu Doora, Kothitheertha, Shravana Madhyana, Neelimale, Theredashte Bagilu.He also wrote numbers of Short stories like Dagadoo Parabana Ashwamedha, Aamruthaballi Kashaya, Shabda Teera, Bannada kaalu, Toofan Mail, Ondu Jelebi, Charminar, Anarkaliya Safety Pin and Vichitraseneya Vaikhari. Kaikini has his own unique style of writing. According to him, "Style is nothing but how you perceive things unconditionally".
While writing lyrics he was inspired by Yakshagana, a rich classical form of dance, drama, music, visual aesthetics with an interpretative narrative. He started as a poet, then took to writing lyrics and fiction.
Mainly he wrote about images and metaphors from the simple, day-to-day routine of life. He portrait in a frame-maker’s shop, a dressing mirror in a scrapyard, a street kid kneeling down and peeping into a tiny rainwater pond on a deserted midnight tar road, only to touch the floating image of the moon, which breaks into pieces in small ripples—such images evoke the stories and poems untold. According to him Writing film lyrics demands a different skill. You have to pen lines for pre-set tunes and context. He was wrote poems earlier, and later shift to lyrics.he used to write about, daily life, cities, local people etc. Also he portrayed Mumbai very well in his works. His expertise of writing in Kannada, and a speaker of Konkani make him different than all other poets.
2] Write a critical note on the poems by Nissim Ezekiel.
Nissim Ezekiel was born on 16 December 1924 and died on 9 January 2004. He was an Indian Jewish poet, actor, playwright, editor and art critic. He was key figure in postcolonial India's literary history, specifically for Indian Poetry in English. His writing gener was Modern Indian English Poetry. He received many awards during his lifetime like, The Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983 for his collection, "Latter-Day Psalms", By the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters.Ezekiel has been applauded for his subtle, restrained and well crafted diction, dealing with common and mundane(simple) themes in a manner that manifests both cognitive profundity, as well as an unsentimental, realistic sensibility, that has been influential on the course of succeeding Indian English poetry.
Ezekiel's evolution as a poet from the ages of 28 to 62. Ezekiel's early work is very concerned with form and contains strict rhyme and meter schemes. Additionally, they are all written in "proper" English and place themselves within a Western literary tradition. As Ezekiel aged, his focus shifted towards his home country, India, and his poems become much more local and specific.
In the beginning he used strict form of poetry, but in later work he moved to ease and confidence in his free verse.Ezekiel's poetics are fascinated with bodies and nakedness, particularly the bodies of beautiful women. Additionally, his poems across his career juggle dualities and paradoxes. Read more here.
Task - 3 (Conclusion)
1] "India is not a country", says Raja Rao, "India is an idea, a Metaphysic". Explain with example.
Raja Rao was born on 8 November 1908, and died on 8 July 2006. He was an Indian-American writer of English-language novels and short stories, whose works are deeply rooted in metaphysics. The Serpent and the Rope (1960), a semi-autobiographical novel recounting a search for spiritual truth in Europe and India, established him as one of the finest Indian prose stylists and won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1964. He also received several other awards like The Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1988. According to him,"India is not a country,it is a perspective." In his book 'The meaning of India'. He explore the perspective which he calls India, its metaphysic, the philosophical underpinning that sets India apart, uniquely distinguishes its civilisation.
Through fable and real-life encounters, descriptions of journeys and events, or in discussions with contemporaries, Raja Rao’s quest is unceasing and single-focused: how this perspective alone can give meaning to man’s daily action. He draws on a wide range of sources, including the Vedas, Upanishads, teachings of Sankara, the writings of Bhartrihari, and the poetry of Valery and Mallarme. There are essays that describe his meetings with Gandhi and Nehru, so too with Forester and Malraux, westerners who drew close to India.The meaning of India paints and details the essential meta-physical backdrop of his acclaimed writing. Written in rhythmic, sparkling style which Raja Rao has made his own since Kanthapura, both simple and eclectic, expansive and precise, this book holds that India’s civilization and meaning can only be known by understanding the truth about one’s won existence- and that of the world.
2] What were the reasons that writers of post - Independence Indian writing in English preferred to write in English rather than their mother tongue. Explain with example.
Indian Writing in English is basically started during the British rule in India . Indian writing in English began with the emergence of East India Company in India. As East India Company spread its wing through southern peninsula, English language started to get newer pockets of influence.Early Indian writers used English unmixed by Indian words to demise an expression which was basically Indian. Apart from the freedom struggle that awakened many of the Indians who fought for the freedom, the writers at that time were able to transmit their point of view, which ultimately helped to motivate and guide the crowds. The happiness of accomplishing the magnificent victory against the British rulers was suddenly spoiled by the shocking and traumatic partition of 1947.
The horrors, tragic consequences and partition like the large scale migration, adventurous looting and merciless massacres were portrayed by the writers in their works which captured the interest, and imagination of the reader, the Indian English novels began to prove its mark towards the global dignified storyline. English novels began to prove its mark towards the global dignified storyline.
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