Learning Outcome : Translation Studies

Hello readers...

On 3rd January 2022 we have  workshop on practical translation by Dr.vishal Bhadani sir. 

We have a paper in our syllabus of : Comparative Literature and Translation Studies so this workshop is for that Beacuse it helps us in our better understanding on that paper.

It was the best session on translation studies. When I heard the first time about the translation at that time I was thinking that it's not a big deal.

એમાં શું મોટી વાત છે ? dictionary છે , google છે...it's help us but when i attend thay session than I realised that it's not an easy to translate anything.

Vishal Bhadani :-

He is the director at International_Center_for_Applied_Gandhian_Studies. He is a very good translator.He has translated many books from Gujarati to English such as અકૂપાર - The Blue Marble , તિમિરપંથી - The Pilgrims of Darkness.Apart from this he has translated many books.

Vishal sir said that "Translation is mental gymnastics."

It was an amazing session. He presented his translator journey as his love story.He is a very creative person. He gave a seven metaphor for better understanding. And also talk about the myths on the translation studies.

So let's see what kind of learning outcomes from that workshop:-

1) Has your understanding of translation improved?

Yes my understanding of translation is improved after this workshop. Before that workshop I think that translation of any text it's easy that if we have proper dictionary and proper sense that we can do it but I was wrong.  In the first session sir talk about the how his love story started with translation. And he very significantly explained all that approaches. 

Gayatri Spivak said,

"Translation is the closest reading of text".

 

And yes I have one believe that all we can  translate all the words but I was wrong. It's difficult to find a perfect meaning of some religious words and some ancient words. For that we have to go for another search in deeply.  

They gave one example like:

1) ડામ દેવો:-

There is no perfect meaning of this word ડામ on Google.

For that we have to go for sardar patel's biography because in thier childhood they faced that problem. So that's the thing. 

It's really amazing session which is totally changed my mindset towards the translation studies.

2) મા તે મા બીજા બધા વનવગડા ના વા:-

There is no change in the translation on Google.

Sir translated this sentence like...

Mother is Mother બાકી બધું other

2) Can you write about translation in terms of metaphors? 

Yes we can. Sir gave a seven metaphors and it's help us to understand translation in better way. Metaphors like nature, mythology, epic, culture, music.

1] The Moon :- 

The moon's calmness is the translation of the sun's light. And that's like translation of any text is the reflection of real text .

2] Ganesha's head :- 

This is the very significant metaphor it's reflecting that to put the similar thing instead of the original; it means we can use the similar words in place of the original words. That looks similar to the original. 

3] Kevat :- 

We know that famous scene of Rama and Kevat. So Rama is a text and that woman is a dictionary and kevat is a translator. It means while translating you need the help of a dictionary.

4] Western - Eastern Culture :- 

Exchange of one another's culture. It means that while translating any of text we accept that culture of anywhere.

5)Chess_Cat :-

 Be a cat who sit infront of chess like when you try  translated something than you have to decide the next step of your move.

6) Music Notation:-

There is rythem in music like સા રે ગા મા પા ધા ની સા. we have to translate some songs than we don't sing in that rythem it will change in translation.

7) Panghat:-

This is picture you see the both side evil and good side. So in the translation we have to careful about the words.

3) What according to you is the most difficult aspect of practical translation?

 I find most difficult aspect is to find a most significant word instead of real word in the text. It's happen that we not find a proper meaning of particular word in the dictionary and Google also. So that's thing I find difficult in the translation.

4) learning outcome from the workshop :- 

It was an amazing session. We really learnt a lot from this session.

Translation is an epistemological excercise.

(Science of Knowledge)

In practical translation you have to play with words. 

Sir said that "It's neck of translation."

You have to be poetic.

In the machine translation there is lack of playfulness. You can't play with words.

 first thing is that translation doesn't seem to work in the one single field.:

There is various fields like:

1)Humanities and fine Arts

2)Journalism and mass media 

3)Commerce

4)law

5)Education

6)Science

7)Social work

8)Engineering

9)Architecture

10)Management

Sir suggested some reading website :

1)scroll.com.in

2) The wire

3)The Washington Post

4)Big think

5)MIT

6) Service Space

In sir's translation he find some ancient words and it's difficult to find their meaning so he used the visuals for some words:-

1) ગણેશિયો

2) દંગો

3) ભારંડ

4) નેહડો

5) કરમણ

G.N.Devi in his article mention that..

In western metaphysics translation is an excile , a fall from the origin and the mythical excile.

We also aware about myths about translation:

1)Untranslatability 

2)Translation is a small industry

3)Most translators translate book

4)Machine translation is crushing the demand for human translation

5)Translation is either beautiful or faithful. 

So these are all myths, there is scope in the translation field, machines can not translate regional words. So my understanding of translation has improved. 

Sir also gave sentence for translation in study:-

1) મે મારી બેન ને પરણાવી.

2) જે આનંદ બધા સાથે વેહચતો નથી એ અપૂર્ણ છે.

                                            - Shree Aurobindo

3)ઝેર તો પીધા છે જાણી જાણી

4) મારા લોકભારતી ના શિક્ષણે મારી કેળવણી કરી.

So I would request you try to translate this sentences. 

So it was an amazing session. We really learnt a lot from that workshop.

Thank you to Vishal sir providing a unique perspective. And we can also grateful to Dilip sir for arranging such a wonderful workshop.

 Some glimpse:-

Thank you.....

Documenting Sources_Research_Methodology

Hello readers...

we have a paper on Research Methodology. In that we have a unit on the Documentation. Our medam gave a task on that we have to explore that documenting sources. So in this blog i would like to about the Documenting sources.

So let's see what is the MLA and its main context.

What is MLA?

MLA stands for the Modern Language Association, an organization that focuses on language and literature.

Depending on which subject area your class or research focuses on, your professor may ask you to cite your sources in MLA style. This is a specific way to cite, following the Modern Language Association's guidelines. There are other styles, such as APA format and Chicago citation style, but MLA format is often used for literature, language, liberal arts, and other humanities subjects. This guide extensively covers this format but is not associated with the organization.

What is MLA Citing?

The Modern Language Association Handbook is in its 9th edition and standardizes the way scholars document their sources and format their papers. When everyone documents their sources and papers in the same way, it is simple to recognize and understand the types of sources used for a project. Readers of your work will look at your citations not only to understand them but possibly to explore them as well.

When you're borrowing information from a source and placing it in your research or assignment, it’s important to give credit to the original author. This is done by creating an MLA citation. Depending on the type of information you're including in your work, you may place citations in the body of your project and in a works-cited list at the end of your project.

The handbook explains how to create MLA citations. This page summarizes the information in the handbook’s 9th edition.

There is also a section below on a recommended way to create an MLA header. These headers appear at the top of your assignment’s pages. Check with your instructor on whether they prefer a certain MLA format for the header.

What is MLA Format?

The 9th edition is the most recent and updated version for MLA citations. Released in April 2021, the citation format differs slightly from previous versions. This update follows the 2016 update for the 8th edition that contained many significant changes from previous editions.

For the 8th edition, the biggest difference and most exciting update was the use of one standard format for all source types. In previous versions, scholars were required to locate the citation format for the specific source that they used. There were different formats for books, websites, periodicals, and so on. After 2016, using one universal MLA citation format allowed scholars to spend less time trying to locate the proper format to document their sources and focus more on their research.

Other updates included the addition of “containers.” A container provides details on a work contained within a larger work. For example, books contain chapters, albums contain songs, and journals contain journal articles. The source is the larger work, such as a website, while the container is a smaller work within that source, such as a short story on the website.

MLA now encourages you to add DOIs or URLs to citations. Use a DOI instead of a URL when it’s available. According to the MLA 9th edition, you can usually leave out http:// or https:// from URLs unless you want to hyperlink them. For DOIs, use http:// or https:// before the DOI: https://doi.org/xx.xxxx/xxx.xxxx.xxxx).

Social media pseudonyms and usernames can replace the real name of the author. Volume and issue numbers are now abbreviated as “vol.” and “no.” Cities of publication and the source’s medium (such as print or web) are no longer included in citations. For academic presses/publishers, with the words “university” or “press,” shorten “university” to “U”, and “press” to “P” (Cambridge UP). Lowercase seasons when using them in the date field of a citation (spring 2021 not Spring 2021).

Bibliography vs. Works Cited - What's the Difference?

You may have heard the two terms, "Bibliography" and "Works Cited" thrown around interchangeably. The truth is that they are two different words with two completely different meanings.

A bibliography is a list of sources that the writer recommends for further reading. A works-cited list is a list of sources that were included in the author's writing.

Want to suggest some books and websites to your reader? Create an MLA format bibliography by creating a list of full citations and label the page as "Bibliography."

Did you use any quotes or place any paraphrases in your writing? Create in-text citations and place them in the body of your work. Then, create a list of full citations and place them at the end of the project. Label the page as "Works Cited."

The good news is that references in MLA bibliography format and regular works-cited lists are structured the exact same way.

Documenting Sources: MLA

Formatting the Works Cited Page (MLA):-

Whenever you incorporate outside sources into your own writing, you must provide both in-text citations (within the body of the paper) and full citations (in the works cited page). The in-text citations point your reader toward the full citations in the works cited page.

That’s why the first bit of information in your in-text citation (generally, the author’s name; if no name is provided, the title of the article/book/webpage) should directly match up with the beginning of your works cited entry for that source. For further information about in-text citations, please read “Formatting In-Text Citations.”

For example, let’s say I have a quote from Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities in my research paper. Within the body of the paper, following the quote, I include the following in-text citation: (Anderson 56). This information points to the book’s entry in my works cited page:

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 2006. Print.

When your reader sees the in-text citation in your essay, she may decide that the source might be valuable for her own research. When she looks at the works cited page, she can easily locate the source (because the works cited page is alphabetized and because she has the in-text citation as her referent) and then can use the full citation to retrieve a copy of the source for her own research. But aside from providing the reader with resources for her own research, the works cited page serves another function: it establishes the writer’s credibility. If a writer fails to include in-text citations and/or a works cited page, that writer has plagiarized because he or she has neglected to provide the publication information of the source. In addition, when a reader locates undocumented information in an essay, she will likely think that the information was made up by the writer or that the information was stolen from a source, or plagiarized. And when a reader peruses a writer’s works cited page, she can see the types of sources used by the writer, assessing those sources in terms of their credibility. For instance, if a reader reads my works cited page and sees I cite sources from university presses such as Oxford UP and Cambridge UP, she will know that I’ve incorporated credible sources into my research paper. Thus, including both in-text citations and a works cited page in a research paper provides the writer with ethos, or credibility.

Now let’s take a look at how to properly format a works cited page according to MLA guidelines:

1)Placement:-

According to MLA style guidelines, the works cited page should appear after the body of your paper and any accompanying endnotes. It should begin on a new page, and the pagination should continue from the body of the paper. In the above example, the works cited page begins on page 38, which means that the essay concluded on page 37.

2)General format:-

The works cited page should be double-spaced throughout. The first line of each entry should be flush with the left margin; if the entry extends more than one line, ensuing lines should be indented 1/2 inch from the left margin. The first page of the works cited list should have the title “Works Cited,” not “Bibliography.” The works cited title should appear in the same manner as the paper’s title: capitalized and centered—not bolded, within quotation marks, italicized, underlined, or in a larger font.

3)Entries:-

The entries should be alphabetized based on the author’s last name. According to MLA guidelines, author names come first in an entry, then titles, then the publication information (city of publication, publisher, and date of publication), and then the type of media—the details for different types of sources vary, but this is the general structure followed. Note that if the city is not “well-known” and there is more than one city with that name, unlike New York and London, then the state or territory should be included after the city, e.g., “Roswell, GA: 2006.” If no name is provided for a given source, the title of the work/webpage will take the place of the author’s last name and should still be placed in its proper alphabetical location. Also note that “university” and “press” are always abbreviated “U” and “P” in works cited entries.

Here are some guidelines for commonly used sources:

Single-Authored Book

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Date of Publication. Type of media.

Example:

Bratlinger, Patrick. Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914. Ithaca: Cornell UP,

1988. Print.

Book with Multiple Authors

Last Name, First Name (of first author listed), and First Name Last Name (of second author, etc.). Title

of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Date of Publication. Type of media.

Example:

Sabherhagen, Fred, and James V. Hart. Bram Stoker’s Dracula: A Francis Ford Coppola Film. New York:

Signet, 1992. Print.

Article or Chapter in an Edited Collection (or Textbook)

Last Name, First Name. “Article Title.” Title of Book. Ed. First Name Last Name (of Editor). Place of

Publication: Publisher, Date of Publication. Page Range of Article. Type of Media.

Example:

Vieregge, Quentin. “Writing as Process.” Negotiating Writing Spaces. Ed. Jennifer Yirinec and Lauren

Cutlip. Plymouth, MI: Hayden-McNeil, 2011. 57–59. Print.

Article in a Print Journal

Last Name, First Name. “Article Title.” Title of Journal. Volume #.Issue # (Date of publication): Page Range

of Article. Print.

Example:

Rogers, Pat. “Crusoe’s Home.” Essays in Criticism 24.4 (Oct. 1974): 375–90. Print.

Journal Article Accessed Using an Electronic Database

Last Name, First Name. “Article Title.” Journal Name Volume #.Issue # (Date of publication): Page Range

of Article. Database. Web. Date of Access.

Example:

Lamont, Rose C. “Coma versus Comma: John Donne’s Holy Sonnets in Edson’s WIT.” The Massachusetts

Review 40.4 (Winter 1999–2000): 569–75. JSTOR. Web. 30 April 2012.

Article Accessed from an Online Journal

Last Name, First Name. “Article Title.” Journal Name Volume #.Issue # (Date of publication): n.pag. Web.

Date of Access.

Example:

Haynsworth, Leslie. “All the Detective’s Men: Binary Coding of Masculine Identity in the Sherlock Holmes

Stories.” Victorians Institute Journal 38 (2010): n.pag. Web. 16 May 2012.

Article from a Webpage

Last Name, First Name (if given). “Title of Webpage.” Website Title. Publisher of website (often found at the bottom

of the page), date of last update. Web. Date of Access. See (URL is only necessary if you think your

reader won’t easily be able to locate the webpage).

Example:

“Opening Night: Wit Starring Cynthia Nixon.” Broadway.com. Broadway.com, Inc., 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2012.

Entire Website

Website Title. Publisher of website, date of last update. Date of Access. See (URL is only necessary if you

think your reader won’t easily be able to locate the webpage).

Example:

Broadway.com. Broadway.com, Inc., 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2012.

Click here for more details

Watch this video for better understanding:-

Work cited:-

MLA Handbook. 8th ed., Modern Language Association, 2016.

MLA Handbook. 9th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2021.

Petals of blood : Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Hello readers...

This is Blog is the part of thinking activity in classroom. In this blog i would like to talk about one African novel Petals of blood by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. In this we will try to ponder anyone point which is given by our teacher.

Let's throw some light on author  and his novel.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o:-

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu pronunciation: [ᵑɡoɣe wá ðiɔŋɔ]; born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938) is a Kenyan writer and academic who writes primarily in Gikuyu. His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children's literature. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His short story The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright, is translated into 100 languages from around the world.

About Novel:-

Petals of Blood is a novel written by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and first published in 1977. Set in Kenya just after independence, the story follows four characters – Munira, Abdulla, Wanja, and Karega – whose lives are intertwined due to the Mau Mau rebellion. In order to escape city life, each retreats to the small, pastoral village of Ilmorog. As the novel progresses, the characters deal with the repercussions of the Mau Mau rebellion as well as with a new, rapidly westernizing Kenya.

The novel largely deals with the scepticism of change after Kenya's independence from colonial rule, questioning to what extent free Kenya merely emulates, and subsequently perpetuates, the oppression found during its time as a colony. Other themes include the challenges of capitalism, politics, and the effects of westernization. Education, schools, and the Mau Mau rebellion are also used to unite the characters, who share a common history with one another.(From Wikipedia)

Neo colonialism : with reference to petals of blood:-

 Petals of Blood might be handled through the same emphasis placed by Thiong'o on the potency of the colonial languages as regards putting out new alienated identities and minds. To illustrate, when imparting the school memories in the past, Karega complains of the fact the Western literature and English language are taught at school in place of their national historical achievements and literature by turning attention to the black headmaster’s reprimand of the teachers concerning the insufficient education of English: “Teach them good idiomatic English” (Petals 173), which points out his adoption of the significance of

English and his anxiety to impose it on the colonized students.

 Karega continues to narrate the approach of the headmaster to Shakespeare whom he speaks in praise of since he attributes significance and perfection to this poet as is disclosed in the novel: “He read a passage from Shakespeare … ‘Those words are words of a great writer – greater even than Maillu and Hadley Chase.’ … whoever heard of African, Chinese and Greek mathematics and science?” (Petals 172). This specifies the belief that the Eastern nations have not been able to make any contributions to the scientific world whereas the Western science and literature as more estimable and praiseworthy subjects have to be instructed at each school in Africa.

 Karega reveals his discomfort caused by the subjects and fields of study at their school that are inculcated into them in order to make the Western figures and historical events absorbed well when he mentions it: “Chaucer, Shakespeare, Napoleon, Livingstone, Western conquerors, Western inventors and discoverers were drummed into our heads with even greater fury. Where, we asked, was the African dream?” (Petals 173).

Now I want you to go back to Ilmorog. Get yourselves together. Subscribe money. You can even sell some of the cows and goats instead of letting them die. Dive deep into your pockets. Your businessmen, your shopkeepers, instead of telling stories, should contribute generously. Get also a group of singers and dancers – those who know traditional songs. Gitiro, Muthuu, Ndumo, Mumburo, Muthungucu, Mwomboko, things like that. Our culture, our African cultural and spiritual values, should form the foundation for this nation. (Petals 172) While accentuating the nationalist premises and discourses in order to delude the natives into the conception that he strains only for his society’s advantage and well-being, Nderi, on the other hand, does not display any interest for the native citizens’ anxieties about famine and poverty, only suspending the agency of solutions and pointing them to beseech assistance from other citizens in Ilmorog. Turning to certain evasiveexpressions like “Thank you. My people of Ilmorog. This is the happiest day of my life since you gave me your votes and told me to go forward and forever fight as your servant in Parliament” (Petals 182), his speech encompasses so-called sincerity and modesty which at first alleviate these people’s apprehension; however, they rapidly notice their misunderstanding and being misled by Nderi whom they see as the only prospect of hope and concrete solution (Petals 182). These natives, as innocent and poor citizens who come near Nderi after a long travel merely in order to ask for his assistance, are arrested by the police since they are accused of prompting a protest and riot against Nderi although they are not involved in such a protest which is triggered by a number of citizens in the streets being really bothered by Nderi’s delusive and vain promises that he never stands by faithfully (Petals 183). Supposing these citizens as those who could pose an obstacle to his private and self-centered financial schemes, Nderi decides to exterminate them when dwelling on his profits as the writer puts it: KCO had originally been a vague thing in his mind. It had grown out of his belief in his cultural authenticity which he had used with positive results in his business partnership with foreigners and foreign companies… He, Nderi wa Riera, was convinced that Africa could only be respected when it had had its own Rockefellers, its Hughes, Fords, Krupps, Mitsubishis … KCO would serve the interests of the wealthy locals and their foreign partners to create similar economic giants! (Petals186) As a black politician who is convinced that the European logic and styles are essential to be imitated and attained by such societies as themselves, Nderi pursues the colonialist desires covering Kenya’s transformation into a setting which is a quintessential European country where imperialistic ambitions are brought into action. He wishes to produce a native country that does not lag behind the modern and developed European countries. Rather than getting a handle on Ilmorog’s sufferings and famine, he is obsessed with giving extension to his economic and political relations with foreign sectors and dignitaries being his cooperators on the course to generating a new country with the replacement of the so-called old, backward and expired one. In considering the native delegation members demanding immediate help and elucidating the country’s knots as overload and his adversaries, he contemplates that “It might be his enemies who had learned about the drought and engineered the whole thing to see what he would do about it, certainly to embarrass him” (Petals 180). The priest sums up the suffering and agonies experienced in the once colonized countries as he emphasizes: So I said: let me return to my home, now that the black man has come to power … I cried to myself: how many Kimathis must die, how many motherless children must weep, how long shall our people continue to sweat so that a few, a given few, might keep a thousand dollars in the bank of the one monster-god that for four hundred years had ravished a continent? And now I saw in the clear light of day the role that Fraudshams of the colonial world played to create all of us black zombies dancing pornography in Blue Hills while out people are dying of hunger, while our people cannot afford decent shelter and decent  schools.

Thiong’o may be claimed to handle mainly the issues of the colonial languages and the local elites in his works. One of Thiong'o's views on the consequences of acquiring or learning the colonial languages is that colonialism is not only a process of material exploitation of the colonized societies with rigid force as this process also needs to encompass the alienation of the native minds which are preoccupied with the nationalist and patriotic ideology, so language takes on the role of making the native society vulnerable to the colonialist ambitions. He proposes the potential disadvantages of the colonial languages which have been utilized by the Western nations so as to bring the colonial process into its final and most effective phase where the native peoples begin to take up inferiority complex due to their local languages.

 culture. Supposing the language as a conduit of culture and worldviews of a society, he thinks that language serves as an integral process of inculcating the Western ideology into the minds of the native citizens. Thus, language learning is not an innocent process of enrichment and development in that it supplies the colonizing nations with new types of the colonized individuals who are unconsciously willing to be exploited because of being brainwashed by adopting the colonial language or the colonial culture and civilization. The reader often comes upon characters who are eager to learn the colonial languages and who are hammered with the Western views as well as these languages in the fiction of Thiong’o such as Njoroge in Weep Not Child and the black headmaster Chui in Petals of Blood. Thiong'o usually makes references in his theoretical works to the local elites in the once colonized countries in which the tools of colonization are transmitted to the native rulers whose only aim becomes accumulating their wealth and sway over the native land. He argues that the ex-colonized countries have to question their current circumstances and discuss if they desire to gain their entire independence by forcing the colonial powers and their exploitive system out of the country. Given that each once colonized nation owns the chance of generating its own colonialist elites who the white colonizers hearten to enter a rigorous partnership in exploiting the masses, the countries gaining their independence recently must construct a secure basis so that the harmful legacy of colonialism cannot trace a fitting space for its persistence.  

Work ciated:-

Karagoz, Cengiz. “Thiong'o's Criticism of Neocolonial Tendencies: Petals of ...” ResearchGate, İksad Publications -2020©, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342199989_Thiong'o's_Criticism_of_Neocolonial_Tendencies_Petals_of_Blood_and_Weep_Not_Child. 

Thank you...

Revolution Twenty20 : Chetan Bhagat

Hello readers..

This is the first blog of sem 4. And in this blog I would like to talk about one of the influential writers of the contemporary time, Chetan Bhagat and his one famous novel " Revolution Twenty20". This is the task in the Google classroom by Prof. Dilip Barad. In that we have to ponder some answers for the question which is given.

Let's throw some light on the author and novel:-

Chetan Bhagat:-

Chetan Baghat, a rising star in the contemporary modern Indian literature, is a multi talented personality. He is a novelist, columnist, public speaker and a screenplay writer. His notable works include Five Point Someone, The 3 Mistakes of My Life and 2 States.Most of his literary works address the issues related to Indian youth and their aspirations which earned Baghat status of the youth icon. Heis an extremely readable and prolific writer in English today. A standout amongst the most noteworthy parts of his written work is that he delivers to the dilemma of contemporary youth in an exceptionally persuasive way, subsequently very highly and popular with his recognition among young people.

Revolution Twenty20:-

Revolution 2020 is a gripping and fast paced novel about love, corruption and ambition. The story delves into the underbelly of a small town, Varanasi, and explores the various hues in the characters of the protagonists in it. Bhagat unearths the darker side of the education system, and for that matter, love too.

In the small and historic town of Varanasi in India, two boys Raghav and Gopal fall in love with the same girl, Aarti. Both of them are intelligent, ambitious and are the best of friends, but destiny has something else in store for them. One of them wants to use his intelligence to make a lot of money and the other wants to create a revolution; but again, their plans are disrupted by their love.

Gopal hails from a poor family and fails to get an admission to the best engineering colleges in the country. Heartbroken, he moves to Kota for a year to prepare for the exams. Raghav comes from a well-to-do family and achieves a good rank in JEE. Delighted, he joins IIT-BHU, one of the premier institutes of India, and embarks on his ambition to become a journalist. Aarti hails from a powerful bureaucratic family, and her aim is to become an airhostess. Aarti falls in love with Raghav while Gopal is at Kota.

The story starts when Gopal rises as the director of a new engineering college opened in Varanasi, with the power of MLA Shukla, a corrupt politician. He uses the legally strangled land of his uncle to manipulate and build the college. Raghav, on the other hand, completes his engineering and joins the largest selling newspaper Dainik as an intern. He starts shedding light on all the wrongdoings of Shukla and exposes him in public.Things take a different turn when Aarti starts developing a soft corner for Gopal.Who will win her love towards the end?Will Raghav’s crusade against the corrupt system fail?Revolution 2020 is a gripping story of love, the corrupt educational system and clashing ambitions.Revolution 2020 got mixed reviews from critics and readers. The book turned out to be yet another bestseller from the Chetan Bhagat stable.

Now let's discuss the questions:-

1)If you were to adapt this novel for the screen, what sort of changes would you make in the story and characters to make it better than the novel?

 

If I adapt this novel for the screen I will make many changes.

First, if I take this triangle of Aarti, Gopal and Raghav then I will give a voice to all characters. Because in the novel we can see that the whole novel is from Gopal's perspective. I will try to make people think of the perspective of both other characters Raghav and Aarti. In the novel they both are 

And I will make Aarti's character stronger than the novel. And also focus on Raghav's character because he is totally busy bringing a change in the world through the revolution and that's why he was unaware of other things.

He trusted Aarti and Gopal who played a game behind him. So I will at least Raghav aware of Aarti and Gopal 's relationship. 

I will change the end of the novel also. In that Gopal realizes that Aarti will not stay happier with him so he leaves her and tries to go back to his corruption World. The thing to think about is that Gopal takes a decision to leave Aarti instead of their corruption World. So in my adaptation I apply that Gopal left both things Aarti and corruption World. And live his life peacefully.

And in that novel we feel like the story was about the love story more than corruption. So I will also throw some more light on the corruption World instead of a love story.

2) 'For a feminist reader, Aarti is a sheer disappointing character.' Do you agree with this statement? If yes, what sort of characteristics would you like to see in Aarti? If you disagree with this statement, why? What is it in Aarti that you are satisfied with this character?

Yes, I agree that Aarti is a sheer disappointing character. As a feminist reader we find Aarti's character is more confusing character than the other.

First,she was confused about her future and education. She wants to become an airhostess but she belongs to a rich family and political background so that's not happening. 

Second thing is that she was not sure about whom she wanted to live their life ahead Gopal ya Raghav. When Raghav passes the entrance exam for Kota she likes him and is attracted towards his educational qualifications. But when Gopal becomes rich she is ready to stay with him. 

 

I would like that If Chetan Bhagat makes this character stronger and loyal. And at least try to make this character stable. She had no further planning in her life and that's why she was a more confusing character in the novel.

3)'For a true revolutionist, the novel is terribly disappointing.' Do you agree? If yes, what sort of changes would you make in character or situation to make it a perfect revolutionary novel? If you disagree, what is in the novel that

you are satisfied with? 

Yes, I totally agree with that 'For a true revolutionist, the novel is terribly disappointing'. Because the novel's plot woven the concept of love rather than revolution.

I will make some changes like…

As we know that if good people try to change the society that they have to suffer from the bad times. Because bad people always try to damage them. So in the novel Raghav was a revolutionist. And he also suffered a lot because he tried to change society from their thinking. And he is unaware about the mind games of Aarti and Gopal. So I will try to have Raghav have a voice in the novel for himself. And make this character stronger. 

And I will try to change the end of the novel from some ideas of related corruption Worlds because that novel ends like a revolutionary ending rather than a lovely ending.

Thank you....

Cyberfeminism: A Study of the Role of Women in Digital World

      Cyberfeminism: A Study of the Role of Women in Digital World

Abstract:-

Internet and digital technologies plays an important role in society today.It has positive and negative effects on the world and it impacts daily lives.The internet and cell phones are some of the examples.Young people are fascinated by this digital world.Digital platforms give a new dimension.Facebook, Instagram,Twitter, blogs, Apps for chat have become an integral part of the life of millions of Indians.But one notable thing is that Women are less interested in the digital world and the main thing is that they are afraid to use technology. Why? This article explores the answer to that question. Why women are afraid to explore themselves on digital platforms. According to the NFHS-5 report only 33.3% of women in India had access to the Internet as opposed to 57.1% of men. So in India less women are on digital platforms. This article focuses on the reason for hesitation of using digital platforms by Indian women and their role on various digital platforms. A group of women called VNX Matrix got together and talked about a new type of consciousness called Cyberfeminism and also known as "online feminism" which are flourishing today. This article focuses on the role of women on digital platforms with the basic tenants and theory of Cyberfeminism.

Keywords:- 

Cyberfeminism, technology, internet, digital platforms, feminist movements, online Misogyny, cyberattacks, techno-fear , social media,feminist theory

Introduction:-

                   As technology becomes more advanced, women are becoming more liberated and they are getting more and more interested in technology. The information and communication technology allows women to escape the boundaries and raise the voice against injustice. This connection between women and technology gave a new kind of idea known as Cyberfeminism. Cyberfeminism takes feminism as its starting point, and turns its focus upon contemporary technologies, exploring the intersection between gender identity, culture and technology. The development of women’s use of cyberfeminism has felt like a movement. It’s been full of supportive acts and discussions. 

What is Cyberfeminism?

“And with a vengeance, girls got digital and used the language of the new techno-culture to create their own conceptual vanguard" (VNS Matrix).

                   Definitions of cyberfeminism are hard to synthesize. Cyberfeminism is a term coined in 1994 by Sadie Plant, director of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit at the University of Warwick in Britain, to describe the work of feminists interested in theorizing, critiquing, and exploiting the Internet, cyberspace, and new-media technologies in general. The term and movement grew out of “third-wave” feminism, the contemporary feminist movement that follows the “second-wave” feminism of the 1970s, which focused on equal rights for women, and which itself followed the “first-wave” feminism of the early 20th century, which concentrated on woman suffrage. 

                  Cyberfeminism was the work of Donna Haraway, a professor in the History of Consciousness program at the University of California at Santa Cruz. In her groundbreaking essay “A Manifesto for Cyborgs,” she argues for a socialist, feminist cyborg that challenges the singular identities and “grids of control” that work to contain women and other marginalized groups. Haraway agreed that women needed to become more technologically proficient, better able to engage with the “informatics of domination” and challenge these systems. And she is right. Women should try to connect themselves with technology and become an integral part of the internet. 

But Haraway also and importantly argued that women would need to be savvy and politically aware users of these technological systems; simply using them was not enough. This is the main thing which each woman should remember while using technology. There is nothing wrong with the use of technology but they have to be aware of the negative effects also. They have to make some more efforts to make their place safe in the digital world. And make sure that all the women use technology in very large numbers.

                             

Role of women in digital world :-

During the COVID-19 period governments announced lockdowns that drew people towards the digital world. People became more interested in online shopping with e-retail reaching 95 percent of Indian districts, and digital payments touching the 100 million transactions per day mark, it amplified another trend: The gendered digital divide. Indian women are 15 percent less likely to own a mobile phone, and 33 percent less likely to use mobile internet services than men. In 2020, 25 percent of the total adult female population owned a smartphone versus 41 percent of adult men. Even when they are permitted to own or use household-level mobile devices, women’s online activity is often governed by male relatives. While mobile phones are viewed as a risk to women’s reputation pre-marriage; post-marriage, phone-use is viewed as an interruption to caregiving responsibilities. Women generally refrain from speaking on their phones in public places, preferring to conduct their conversation within the home, owing to prevailing social norms and fear of judgement. 

                               

Feminist movements: Role of technology

                               The Use of technology by womens gave a more voice of Cyberfeminism day by day. Technology also played a vital role in the life of women. It has also helped bring justice to women. Online or cyberfeminists make use of blogging and social media as a measure of political mobilisation and community building.

According to feminist activist Faith Wilding, “there is a tendency though among many cyberfeminists to indulge techno-utopian expectations that the new e-media will offer women a fresh start to create new languages, programs, platforms, images, fluid identities and multi-subject definitions in cyberspace; that in fact women can recode, redesign, and reprogram information technology to help change the feminine condition.”

Although the fourth wave of feminism is still in its nascent stage in India, women are using digital tools to demand accountability from their governments, corporations and leaders. In India, digital feminist movements largely rely on social media platforms.

Throwing some light on the some movements in which internet played an important role:-

1) In 2017, the #LahuKaLagaan hashtag took over on Twitter to campaign against the 12 percent tax on sanitary napkins, with the“period tax” being scrapped in 2018 as a result of the movement.

2) In 2012, in the aftermath of the death of a 23-year-old rape victim in Delhi, widespread protests broke out under the ‘Nirbhaya movement’. The protests spread to social media as well. Hashtags like #DelhiBraveheart was used by millions in support of justice for the victim. This type of movement forces the government to take action.

3) The Delhi rape incident brought women’s safety in public places to the forefront of policy discourse. In the ethnographic work ‘Why Loiter,’ feminist sociologist Shilpa Padke showed that the act of “loitering” is more prevalent among men, while women are rarely alone in public spaces like parks and beaches.

4) In 2017, this culminated in the #WhyLoiter hashtag trending on Twitter, with women posting pictures and stories of how they were reclaiming public spaces, creating the narrative of resisting male domination and patriarchy in the physical and virtual spaces.

5) By 2018, the #MeToo movement gained momentum in India, enabling women to share their stories of sexual harassment on social media. It also led to activists successfully lobbying the government to strengthen the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, which previously had many weaknesses.And from this movement people are aware about how the online harassment is done by famous people.In that case famous people from the Bollywood industry like Nana Patekar, Chetan Bhagat and others are also a part of that online harassment.

6) In 2013, acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal gathered 27,000 signatures through an online petition, ‘StopAcidSale’, to curb the sales of acid and took the issue to the Supreme Court. The campaign gained nationwide attention and allowed several other acid attack survivors to voice their support for the ban on acid sale. In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the plea and introduced restrictions on the sale of acid.This seems to be an easy way to connect more people on the internet in limited time and also through that they try to see how to raise a voice against injustice.

7) Another study of women's movements on social media by Sujatha Subramanium, who interviewed a Dalit feminist activist, noted, "In Kerala, the voices of subaltern groups are very prominent on social media, especially sexualminorities and Dalit groups. On social media, all of us are publishers. Only some communities get the space to get published in mainstream media. Social media allows marginalized voices the possibility of being heard in the public discourse. 

This feminist movements help the women to raise their voice and standing a strong in front of the injustice. These online moments help to gather a large number of people in limited time and become a voice of victims ya anybody.

Online Misogyny and Cyber attacks :-

The digital space has also become a hotbed for online harassment, bullying and sexual exploitation.Online abuse is also linked to domestic violence against women. According to research by Women’s Aid, 48 percent of women in the UK who had experienced violence at the hands of a partner also reported experiencing online abuse once they had left the relationship. The study also revealed that 38 percent of women had been stalked online after they had left their partners.Such data indicates that the internet not only allows violent ex-partners to use it as another tool to abuse women, but also to incite others to join in their attacks.

MS Dhoni’s daughter, Ziva Dhoni, underwent rape threats after her Dad’s side, the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), lost the last clash facing the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). The threatening annotations were declared to Dhoni’s wife’s Instagram account, and reportedly, the step was taken by the Gujarat Police.The 16-year-old boy, who is a student of class twelve, has been arrested for making such offensive remarks. 

Indian captain Virat Kohli who has received rape threats against his nine-month-old daughter, because he took a stand against the communal criticisms against his teammate and cricketer, Mohammad Shami. Following this, the Delhi Commission of Women issued a notice to the Delhi police in connection with rape threats issued against the minor daughter of Virat Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma. 

Conclusion:-

                              Throwing some light on history that technology has been a male dominated and new technologies also are still continuing that tradition. On the other hand, women stay away from technology. Cyberfeminism talks about the women's role in the digital world.Every coin has two sides and that's like technology has an advantage and disadvantage.Every woman needs to accept one thing: that the internet is not only harmful for them but it's helpful in many ways if it is used in the right way. In fact, the internet encourages them to overcome techno-fear.Women try to get involved in that criteria of technology but the one stage of using that they had fear of online harassment, online misogyny and cyberattacks. All of these things stop women from using technology freely. They can't share their photos on social media freely because they are scared of that misuse by people.Women have been willing to share their ideas and experiences with others who they only know online. Social platforms are tools for interactions with the people around them at the level of the world. Women can use cyberfeminism to communicate with each other and to connect over the issues that are closest to their hearts. But it's not done by all women because of that techno-fear. So it's all about that all Women should try to make their place in the digital world and cyberspace. The Internet is a great space for women to explore them and their ideas in front of the world.

References:-

1)Aneja, Urvashi, and Mishra Vidisha. “Digital India Is No Country for Women. Here's Why.” The Wire: The Wire News India, Latest News,News from India, Politics, External Affairs, Science, Economics, Gender and Culture, The Wire, 25 May 2017, https://m.thewire.in/article/economy/digital-india-women-technology.

2) Claire, Evans L. “An Oral History of the First Cyberfeminists.” VICE, https://www.vice.com/en/article/z4mqa8/an-oral-history-of-the-first-cyberfeminists-vns-matrix.

3)Consalvo, Mia. "Cyberfeminism." Encyclopedia of New Media. Ed. . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2002. 109-10. SAGE Reference

Online. Web. 4 Apr. 2012.

4) Draude, Claude. Introducing Cyberfeminism. Old Boys Network. www.obn.org. Accessed December

20.

5) Geeta, Pandey. “Delhi Nirbhaya Rape Death Penalty: What Do Hangings Mean for India's Women?” Https://Www.bbc.com/News/World-kuAsia-India-50812776, 20 Mar. 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-50812776.

6) Faith Wilding, “Where Is Feminism In Cyberfeminism?“, NEME, March 28, 2006.

7) Haraway, Donna J. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the 

Late Twentieth Century." Simians, Cyborgs, and Women (1991): 141 -181, 243 -248. Print.

8) Hawthorne, Susan, Klein, Renate. CyberFeminism: Connectivity, Critique, Creativity. Spinifex Press Pty 

Ltd. North Melbourne, Vic. Australia. 1999.

9) JAIN, SHRUTI. “The Rising Fourth Wave: Feminist Activism on Digital Platforms in India.” ORF, 9 Oct. 2020, https://www.orfonline.org/research/the-rising-fourth-wave-feminist-activism-on-digital-platforms-in-india/?amp.

10) Kalyanam, Rajeshwari. “Why Loiter? The Book Talks about Women Access and Their Need to Reclaim Public Spaces.” The Hans India, The Hans India, 7 Dec. 2019, https://www.thehansindia.com/featured/sunday-hans/why-loiter-the-book-talks-about-women-access-and-their-need-to-reclaim-public-spaces-587967.

11) Keertana, Tella K. “#MeToo: An International Conversation on Sexual Violence Impacting Feminist Discourse across Borders.” Economic and Political Weekly, 30 Oct. 2018, https://www.epw.in/engage/article/metoo-international-conversation-sexual-violence-feminist-discourse-impact.

12) Mohanty, J. R., and Swati Samantaray. “Cyber Feminism: Unleashing Women Power through Technology.” Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, vol. 9, no. 2, 2017, https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v9n2.33.

13) Mulyaningrum, Dr. ``CYBERFEMINISM: Changing Gender Inequality Via Information Technology." ResearchGate November 2007: 6.

14) Nikore, Mitali, and Uppadhayay Ishita . “India's Gendered Digital Divide: How the Absence of Digital Access Is Leaving Women Behind.” ORF, 9 Sep. 2021, https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/indias-gendered-digital-divide/?amp.

15) Rosi Braidotti, 'Cyberfeminism with a difference.'

[www.let.ruu.nl/womens_studies/rosi/cyberfem.htm]

16) Staff, TMN. "Rape threat to Virat-Anushka’s daughter, DCW asks for probe." The News Minute 02 November 2021.

17) Vera, Hinsey. “Girls Get Digital: A Critical View of Cyberfeminism.” Academic Commons, Center for Digital Research and Scholarship, 1 Jan. 1970, https://doi.org/10.7916/D8J67DXS.

18) Verma, Smita. “Youth , Social Media and Emerging Alternative Spaces for Socio-Political Movements : Analysis of 'Nirbhaya' Impact.” Abstract: YOUTH , Social MEDIA and Emerging Alternative Spaces for Socio-Political Movements : Analysis of 'Nirbhaya' IMPACT (XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 13-19, 2014)), Isaconf, https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/wc2014/webprogram/Paper45163.html.

19) Wilding F. and Critical Art Ensemble (1998): Notes on the Political Condition of Cyberfeminism. College Art Association, pp.46-59.

Piano and Drums by Gabriel Okara

Hello readers...

In this blog I would like to talk about the one poem from the African literature. We are studying some poems from the famous African writers. So in this blog i discussed about the one poem Piano and Drums by Gabriel Okara . 

Let's throw some light on the writer:-

Gabriel Imomotimi Okara (24 April 1921 – 25 March 2019 was a Nigerian poet[2] and novelist who was born in Bumoundi in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria. The first Modernist poet of Anglophone Africa, he is best known for his early experimental novel, The Voice (1964), and his award-winning poetry, published in The Fisherman's Invocation (1978)and The Dreamer, His Vision (2005). In both his poems and his prose, Okara drew on African thought, religion, folklore and imagery,and he has been called "the Nigerian Negritudist".According to Brenda Marie Osbey, editor of his Collected Poems, "It is with publication of Gabriel Okara's first poem that Nigerian literature in English and modern African poetry in this language can be said truly to have begun."

About poem:-

The poem is a post-colonial poem that focuses on the contrast between two cultures (African and western culture). The poet puts the culture side by side to emphasize the comparison between the two cultures.

The poem broadly talks about the experience that Africans had with colonialization and the aftermath of colonialization on the African continent. The poem is strongly built around symbolism and metaphor. The poet uses the "piano" to symbolize the western culture, and the drums to symbolize the African culture.

From the lines of the poem, you examine the poet's tone and mood. The mood of the poem is sober and at the end of the poem, it becomes more indignant angry. From the poem, we can detect that the poet prefers the African culture that is simple and free from complexities, unlike the western culture that is embedded in sophistication that makes the black man end in confusion.

From the poem, we can see that the poet is cut up between two cultures, and that is where the confusion set in. Looking at the colonial era, the western culture was forcefully infused into the African culture, that Africans themselves could not separate the western life from their true heritage. At the point where the African man can't separate the western life from his own culture because sometimes he remembers his own culture and wishes he can go back to what used to be, but at the same time he is caught up in the western culture. "And I lost in the morning mist of an age at a riverside keep, wandering in the mystic rhythm of jungle drums and concerto". The poem is basically about the cultural clash and post-African literature.  

For the better understanding I find one essay on thi poem I would like to analysis here:-

This essay was written by CYRIL ABAKU.

The subject of this brief essay, without overlooking what he have just said above, is clearly the celebration of a very rare natal milestone; one which very few in our clime have had the grace to enjoy, considering the statistics, today, on national life expectancy in Nigeria!

Pa Gabriel Imomotimi Gbaingbain Okara, the great poetic visionary and undisputed pioneer of literary modernism in Africa, is 96: let us be happy! Let us roll out the drums -and, perhaps, the pianos too! He is not aware if today, there is much by way of discrimination, as it was in earlier days, to compel a stringent definition of artistic preferences within exclusivist or exclusionist parameters: to declare categorically a preference for the drum as a mark of African cultural patriotism or the piano itself, which might mean a solidarity with an otherness that may not be entirely African.

But at 96, it is more than safe to say that Pa Okara has expectedly made the most, if not all, of the contribution a great writer of his stature would to world literature. A classic by every standard, his 1950 poem, The Call of the River Nun, which won the ‘Best All-Round Entry In Poetry’ prize at the Nigeria Festival of Arts in 1953, remains an abiding watershed in the revolutionary depiction modern African writing brought to man’s inner (perhaps sometimes abstract) struggles in his journey between birth and death. Some four years later, he would again blaze the trail for other writers by becoming the first Nigerian writer to publish in Ulli Beier’s interventionst journal, Black Orpheus (1957), eventually joining its editorial board shortly after. His collection of poems, The Fisherman’s Invocation (1978), won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize the year after it was published. The maturity of his lyrical vision, with an approach to language that remains deeply symbolic, while maintaining a rather swift succession of lines, flows into a stream of qualities that make his poetry gold standard in modernist scholarship anywhere in the world.

Among his notable prose works are his first novel: The Voice (1964), as well as Little Snake and Little Frog (1992) and An Adventure to Juju Island (1991) which are children’s literature.

Essayist had set out to title this tribute as The Long Life of Poetry: Gabriel Okara at 96. But, just as soon, a second overwhelming nudge rebuked me with the recollection that, the celebrator himself, in the path-finding iconoclasm that has characterised his poetic craftsmanship for more than six decades, had long provided a caption in the fitting title to one of the most enduring masterpieces to have come out of African literature: Piano and Drums. He thought, therefore, Piano & Drums for Gabriel Okara at 96. But then I had some reservations again, you know. Kindly forgive me if with this title I seem to have gotten ahead of myself; if I seem to have drawn too early a foreclosure on the possibility of Pa Okara himself having a preference for one of those musical instruments over the other. That is to say: whether he’d prefer pianos to drums; drums to pianos, and so on.

And, you see, this concern does hold true for some. Gabriel Okara was born on April the 24th 1921, and educated at the prestigious Government College, Umuahia, in the 1930’s and 1940’s, thus belonging in that founding generation of African writers who had to be preoccupied much with the struggle for identity and ideology; and the concomitant battle of contrasting values in the colony (and post colony), to which Piano and Drums, perhaps more than any other poetic offering of his generation, appends an immortal signature.

 

The subject of this brief essay, without overlooking what he have just said above, is clearly the celebration of a very rare natal milestone; one which very few in our clime have had the grace to enjoy, considering the statistics, today, on national life expectancy in Nigeria!

Pa Gabriel Imomotimi Gbaingbain Okara, the great poetic visionary and undisputed pioneer of literary modernism in Africa, is 96: let us be happy! Let us roll out the drums -and, perhaps, the pianos too! I’m not aware if today, there is much by way of discrimination, as it was in earlier days, to compel a stringent definition of artistic preferences within exclusivist or exclusionist parameters: to declare categorically a preference for the drum as a mark of African cultural patriotism or the piano itself, which might mean a solidarity with an otherness that may not be entirely African.

 

But at 96, it is more than safe to say that Pa Okara has expectedly made the most, if not all, of the contribution a great writer of his stature would to world literature. A classic by every standard, his 1950 poem, The Call of the River Nun, which won the ‘Best All-Round Entry In Poetry’ prize at the Nigeria Festival of Arts in 1953, remains an abiding watershed in the revolutionary depiction modern African writing brought to man’s inner (perhaps sometimes abstract) struggles in his journey between birth and death. Some four years later, he would again blaze the trail for other writers by becoming the first Nigerian writer to publish in Ulli Beier’s interventionst journal, Black Orpheus (1957), eventually joining its editorial board shortly after. His collection of poems, The Fisherman’s Invocation (1978), won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize the year after it was published. The maturity of his lyrical vision, with an approach to language that remains deeply symbolic, while maintaining a rather swift succession of lines, flows into a stream of qualities that make his poetry gold standard in modernist scholarship anywhere in the world.

Among his notable prose works are his first novel: The Voice (1964), as well as Little Snake and Little Frog (1992) and An Adventure to Juju Island (1991) which are children’s literature.

 

Consistent with a long-standing literary passion, Pa Okara, after several years, returned with the collection The Dreamer, His Vision (2005): an instant success which became a joint winner, that same year, of Nigeria’s highest literary honour, The NLNG-endowed Nigeria Prize for Literature. In 2009, he received an Honorary Membership Award from the Pan African Writers’ Association.

These accolades notwithstanding, what appears to offer greater perspective to his oeuvre, in light of these times, should be the fact that Pa Okara’s writings constitute a body of foresight which, more than any other’s, accurately spoke to the epoch of globalisation in which the world is today immersed.

 

Rightly, the world today has largely transcended geo-cultural boundaries. The body of literature denoting appreciation of -if we turn to it again- Piano and Drums, almost entirely misses the fact that the poem takes its relevance beyond the immediate moment of its birth. The pattern has always been to depict a height of struggle between worlds European and African; the seething contrast between them and a predictable conclusion: if the one successfully displaces the other. But this body of stereotypes hardly embodies the true spirit of an offering whose title alone lays naked its intent from the doorpost, guiding, as it were, with the qualified assistance of a simple conjunction: and!

Piano and Drums. Not Piano vs Drums or Piano against Drums. The poem speaks to a world in which contrasts co-exist as distinct but mutual entities increasingly interdependent; where junctions become conjunctions. A world in which Pianos and Drums find equal expression, both by symbolism and direction, with a guiding vision of commonality rather than opposition, distanciation and conflict. The melody of both worlds, threshed in the interest of a common humanity, is the harmony of this new age.

This eassy help us to understand this poem in better way.

Click here for essay

Thank you...

art & creativity