Anna- May 11- "We're not Jews"

I like the beat of this story and how it shows the pride of every man both from dignified and obtrusive circumstances, the ego. I like how the children mimic their elders like birds without adding content, just repeat punctuated information. How the Billy's are stand ins for Bullies. As mentioned, it is an interesting dynamic to have the insiders turn out to be more intricately both in and out, their worlds super defined but  overlapping

Jason-Kureishi-5/11

            To me the most interesting part of We’re Not Jews was the “twist” ending in which Azhar is revealed to be an “outsider” within his own culture, or at least a culture that is attributed to him by the racist society he lives in. I don’t think any of the stories we’ve read have had this exact same aspect in them. Usually it seems the characters in South Asian literature are some how more closely related to their heritage than Azhar seems to be. He doesn’t speak the language that his relatives do.

It seems the story is almost more about society’s reaction to what it perceives as “Other” and how it treats those individuals than it is about Azhar’s family or culture specifically. In this I got a sense of some kind of irony because of Azhar’s father’s attempts at being a writer, using the English language. The father seems to be trying ceaselessly to “break into” his adopted culture while for this same reason his son is tormented for being an outsider even though he (Azhar) is closer, through his mixed parentage, to the society that rejects him.

Similarly, it’s interesting that Azhar’s father can’t enter into the cultural sphere of his new country because of a language barrier while Azhar can’t really access his own heritage also because of a language barrier.

Will - Kureishi - 5/11

It was a little difficult to decipher the setting of this story at first and consequently the importance of some of the dialogue.  For example, when Azhar's mother instructs him to tell the bully, "Little Billy, you're common - common as muck!"  It doesn't make sense unless you know that Azhar's mother is a white English woman, and in the England of this story to call someone common is to say they're low class, not well born.  The irony is that for the white school children Azhar is worse than working class because he's part Pakistani, and this insult is ineffectual.  Azhar's mother is at first blind to this.  Kureishi is clearly linking the caste system of India with the class society of England.  Azhar's mother had a place in this class society, apparently higher than that of Big Billy and Little Billy, but she loses her position by marrying someone of another race.  This might elucidate the at first perplexing retort Azhar's mother comes up with, "We're not Jews."  References are made to the Holocaust, and Azhar's father links Big Billy with nazism when he mutters, "Triumph of the Bill." 
Anti-semitism was prevalent everywhere before, during, and after WWII, and in the English caste system depicted in this story Jews are outsiders, perhaps similar to untouchables or casteless people.  Azhar's mother means, "You can't treat me like that, I'm part of society too."  Her situation is particularly painful because she realizes she once had a stable position in society, but she lost caste because of her perceived misdeeds.  She is left an outsider in her community and in her own family.

michael roy

this story seems to focus a lot on the dialogue between bippin and saliri. It seems that by coming abck from america he is seen as better off than bippin, and succesful in escaping the excess weight of family tradition. Bippin's mother is a perfect example of the admiration seen towards someone from america, as she assumes that everything there is better and classier. It shows the reality in changing caste and the need to break away from family

Hannah-Roy-05/09

Sandip Roy's "Auld Lang Syne" reminds me of other short stories we have read this semester, especially since it is wholly based on conversations and how each character reacts to one another. There isn't a big event in the story line, but it is about Sunil's homecoming and his interactions with Bipin and his family members. Tea and sweets come up, as in most South Asian literature. When Sunil and Bipin were younger, they longed to move away and had hope, but reality set in and Sunil actually lived out his dreams, while Bipin had to settle. But according to Bipin, that's not necessarily a bad thing - it has to do with growing up and taking responsibility.

The concept of breaking away from tradition is also present in Roy's story since Sunil moved to America and Bipin stayed at home to take care of his family. Sunil went to the West and became more "free", while Bipin stayed in the East and is content, but not necessarily happy. But Sunil kind of longs for Bipin's life since it seems safer and more stable (family life, a son, an office job). Bipin seems to have had the choice to move to America, but stayed because his father passed away. It seems like the West is always a place in which people want to escape to, seeing it as a freer and livelier place. But that's not always the case since Sunil misses his old life.

Will - 5/9 - Roy

"This is what it comes down to, thought Sunil.  After all those years we spent growing up together, all those secrets we shared, we can find nothing safe to talk about anymore other than our jobs." (p. 385)

The beginning of this story seemed like a caricature of family life for me.  It becomes clear in the end that it really is a facade from which Sunil escaped.  Bipin has carefully hidden behind the facade of an average life.  He has a family and a well paying, boring job, a decent car.  He is safe, as Sunil says.  He didn't have to do much to get where he is, didn't take any risks or rock the boat.  Bipin and Sunil can only seem to exchange pleasantries, the mundane facts of their lives, not really connect like they could when they were young and idealistic.  Their evenings spent together as young men are very much still in their minds, as evidenced by the ending scene when the two men are alone and Bipin immediately bursts out, "I had no choice."  Clearly, when Bipin asks heatedly "Why should I torment myself needlessly about things I might have done?" he has been tormenting himself, and the question should be more like, "Why am I tormenting myself?"  The two men are dully content with their lives, which seems like a euphemism for resignation.  Bipin's wife, mother, and son only interrupt real connection between him and Sunil.  Bipin and Sunil have to act out an exchange between grown men as if for an audience.  They have a brief moment when they talk freely, and then their guard comes back up when Mala calls the men to dinner.  This story reminded me of Brokeback Mountain.

Jason-Roy-5/9

            I think the plot of Auld Lang Syne epitomizes many of the themes of South Asian literature. It’s basically the story of two friends, one of whom manages to “escape” the constraints of his country and it’s traditions through emigration. The other friend is caught up in the circumstances of his life in his country of birth. The circumstances of each of the friends mirror the ideas of being born into a certain caste, despite the sense that one of them, Sunil, has managed to “get out” based on his own efforts.

The illusion that the other friend, Bipin, seems to suffer under is that Sunil left his friends and family with some kind of intention behind his action. But because of the way the story is presented with Sunil’s visit “back home” seeming like it was just for the sake of old times and not for any larger reason, the impression I got was that Sunil’s life really is in America and has been all along while Bipin’s has remained where it began.

In one section of Sunil and Bipin’s conversation they discuss whether Sunil feels freer living in America. It seems that this perspective, of Sunil’s freedom, is only possible through Bipin’s eyes. Even though it does seem that Sunil has a “better life” and owns more expensive things than Bipin does, the measure for success and happiness they’re indirectly discussing is skewed since the interpretation of Sunil’s success is being understood by someone, Bipin, who lives in a different culture that presumably has different expectations. Bipin suffers because of this disparity in measures of success as well as (obviously) because he lost his friend.

Monday - Wednesday 5/9 + 5/11

Post on each story (Roy & Kureishi): post on Roy for Mon.; Kureishi for Wed. Comment on the fiction in any way you like: style, theme, connection to S. Asian literature etc.

paper ideas

I would like to take a shot at writing and researching on fiction eccentricity and the flight from reality in south asian fiction (are characters with strange hobbies and preoccupations reflective of a desire to avoid confronting a difficult reality?) this is obvious in rushdies midnights children but the same can be seen in all the books for instance the romantic egos of sea of poppies as we see in zacharary.






of course i do feel that the concpet of family life in south asian novels seems a bit more full. A bend in the river holds a huge undertone of escaping family ties while midnights children seems to show how all life is rooted on past family lines. Sea of poppies displays an attempt to avoid the fate of lineage and the need to do something different.
 the escape from family in the south asian novel - in many European novels family conflicts are resolved or a character sets out in search of a family. In novels of the South Asian diaspora, the characters often seem to be seeking escape from family, whether by boarding a boat or by denying family connections or traveling far from the family with no hope of ever returning. Do these novels, often misread as celebrating traditional cuture, actually offer a resounding rejection of the South Asian family structure?

Jason-Ghosh-5/4

For my term paper I want to focus on the theme of inevitability in each of the books we’ve read and how it seems to relate to a South Asian or Eastern world-view. Inevitability is more or less another word for fate and in each of the stories we’ve read fate, along with one’s hopes, desires, and willingness to change one’s fate, is an ever-present part. Fate or a sense of inevitability is also a principal piece of Buddhist and Hindu ideas and relates explicitly to Karma and caste.

In Sea of Poppies this idea of “fate” (in a broad sense) is expressed in the story’s historical setting, the ways the characters’ castes alter (along with their names), and the structure of the narrative and its focus on sensing an “impending something.” Since large portions of the novel are set aboard boats, there’s a clear implication that the events of the novel and the characters in it are all subject to nature’s (the sea’s) “will.” A particular passage on page 394 illustrates the kinds of hierarchies on aboard the Ibis. During this scene, the Captain explains that the “laws on land have no hold on the water,” and that in the face of the ship’s hierarchy “submission and obedience” are best for keeping order aboard the ship.

            There’s some irony going on in the enforcement of Man’s hierarchy aboard a ship that is under the control of nature. Essentially, there’s a “higher power” acting over everyone and everything aboard the ship that seems to go unnoticed (in some ways) some how.

Jason-Late Post for Monday 5/2

The scenes in which rumors aboard the boats that Deeti and Kalua travel on seem, to me, to imply the idea that those on the “lowest rung of the ladder” do not have access to unfiltered information. In contrast, Neel is someone who, at least in his past, had access to information and facts mostly as a result of his high caste. Because of this kind of access, Neel’s worldview is seemingly uncluttered, at least up until he loses his Raja-hood. Once Neel becomes “caste down” into the rank of a common criminal it seems that his access to “pure” information (literature, philosophy, etc.) was just a product, an illusion, of his caste. These rumors then are examples of the confusion inherent in living life as it is lived (not tucked away in a palace). Also, it seems that it takes courage to disregard these rumors, a quality that can’t necessarily be “learned” from books or extracted from ideologies. Once Neel becomes “among the lower castes,” he’s subject to the same bewildering tortures and confusions they are.

Hannah-Ghosh-05/04

I am interested in discussing family relationships and structure in South Asian literature. For now, I will focus on Salim from A Bend in the River, Amina and Saleem from Midnight's Children, Ammu from The God of Small Things and Deeti from Sea of Poppies. Salim does not identify with the African coast and runs away from his family for years by setting up shop far away. Yet he keep certain aspects of his family close by, like not rejecting the idea of marrying Nazruddin's daughter or even forming a new "family" with Shoba and Mahesh. His identity crises (ethnically Indian Muslim, but not fully African or European) clashes with his family's assumed ideals of traditionalism.

Amina married a man she loved, but that ended in divorce and she learned to love her new husband in pieces. But she ends up having an affair with her old lover. This family structure, for everybody involved, somehow ends up being really messed up (Pia doesn't get along with Mother Reverend, Hanif commits suicide, Saleem's father drinks too much, Aadam Aziz leaves in order to die peacefully, etc). Mother Reverend's eldest daughter remains unmarried for the rest of her life out of spite and rebellion. Ammu also rebelled against her parents by leaving home at 18 and getting married on her own. Trust is so scare in this family (Baby Kochamma is extremely manipulative) that the twins feel they only have each other at times (incest being an outcome of that). Deeti would rather die in flames than remarry her brother-in-law (empowerment) and forms a new familial structure on the Ibis with the other women. Obviously there are a lot of characters and components to touch upon, but I just need to sit down and sort everything out.

Joseph-Ghosh-5/4

I’m currently mulling over two essay prompts:

1. eccentricity and the flight from reality in south asian fiction (are characters with strange hobbies and preoccupations reflective of a desire to avoid confronting a difficult reality?)

The erotic pleasure that Burnham gets from being punished(I found the whole of Chapter Thirteen to be rather bizarre, in format and action), the state of witchcraft in A Bend in the River(I may also use Naipaul’s ‘The Masque of Africa’ as a companion text), the reversal of words and other word games in God of Small Things, and the many eccentric characters in Midnight’s Children.

                          or

2. Name changing/fluid identities

I am thinking of these moments, among others: Kalua and Deeti changing their names to ‘Aditi’ and ‘Maddow Colver’(pp. 277),  Mamdoo-tindal  dressing as a woman(his alter ego Ghaseeti) and his belief that none of the women could ‘match the allure of his alter ego’)(pp.350),  the ‘single Siamese soul’ in God of Small Things, and the much bigger, All-India radio soul in Midnight’s Children. I am still working on this prompt in relation to A Bend in The River.

Rachel - Ghosh, 5/4

...not to hate on Mr. Ghosh, but he has an incredibly irritating voice when he reads aloud.

ANYWAY.

Over the past two days, I've extracted a few scenes from Sea of Poppies, A Bend in the River, The God of Small Things, and Midnight's Children.  All of them focus on the subjugation of women via removal of bodily integrity, since this the theme I'm choosing to examine in South Asian literature.

A few scenes I'm looking at in particular are Deeti's rape/subsequent pregnancy (removal of reproductive choice) when Neel is examined by the prison guard (being reduced to a "womanly" state of powerlessness, not having bodily control) and Deeti's near-rape while her husband is dying.  After watching the YouTube interview, though, I think I might want to incorporate the opium production scene...not sure.  Control over being touched is definitely a "masculine" trait - not just in South Asian literature, but in all literature.

A few others I'm going to be close reading include Ammu's interaction with the police officer (when he taps her breast) from The God of Small Things, the emasculating "monkey speech" in A Bend in the River.

POPPIES: the end of the voyage

Watch the interview with Ghosh about Poppies to the right. He partly reads from the book and summarizes it, then answers questions. Then post on the novel with your term paper idea in mind. Find a quote or series of quotes that pertain to your subject and include some commentary on the passages.
for Monday: please read "Auld Lang Syne," by Sandip Roy - in the packet.
for Wednesday: "We're Not Jews," by Hanif Kureishi.

Additional term paper ideas:

1. gossip and public opinion in the south asian novel - in these books, author's depict the voice of public opinion almost as if the "people of the town" were a character in the book. How does gossip function as a social force? Does it encourage traditional behavior? How is this force distinct in the South Asian novel as opposed to something like Jane Austen?
2. innocence and education in the south asian novel - traditional, Romantic ideas (i.e. 19th century European ideas) tend to glamorize innocence and view education or civilization as a sort of corruption. Surely this idea exists in contemporary South Asian diasporic fiction, but different authors treat the notion of innocence differently. How do the major authors vary and what do they have in common? Is there a progression in their use or rejection of Romantic ideas of innocence?
3. women, sex, and rebellion in south asian fiction - although South Asian culture is frequently regarded as relatively prudish around matters of sex, writers in the diaspora often feature surprisingly assertive female characters - as well as traditional and reserved characters. What role do these sexually forward women play in the fiction? Is there adventurousness a cause of distress or trouble for themselves or others? Is it a rebellion against the strictures of family? Is it associated with western liberal ideas or with Eastern religion - which tends to associate sexuality with spirituality?
4. the persistence of suuperstition in contemporary south asian fiction
5. western liberalism (i.e. Enlightenment liberalism) in south asian fiction
6. "the gods must be crazy!" - machines and technology as a cause of conflict in south asian fiction
7. the pseudo-European Indian in south asian fiction
8. the feminized man in south asian fiction
9. eccentricity and the flight from reality in south asian fiction (are characters with strange hobbies and preoccupations reflective of a desire to avoid confronting a difficult reality?)
10. the escape from family in the south asian novel - in many European novels family conflicts are resolved or a character sets out in search of a family. In novels of the South Asian diaspora, the characters often seem to be seeking escape from family, whether by boarding a boat or by denying family connections or traveling far from the family with no hope of ever returning. Do these novels, often misread as celebrating traditional cuture, actually offer a resounding rejection of the South Asian family structure?

Anna-5/1- Ghosh

The whole book is a collage of little misunderstandings creating comedy, it seems to be the way Ghosh is amusing himself as he writes. The idea of bringing all these incredibly different characters together on one vessel is a terribly fertile ground to let them all bump and misunderstand each other. It feels like the theatre game where everyone is a different "type" or here (archetype) going to the same party. (how does a ninja turtle interact with donald trump?)

Throughout the novel, the reader remains much smarter (more informed) than the characters, who are more like puppets.

The scene that comes to mind first is when Paulette finally gets herself aboard the Ibis in her pink sari and is peering out of her sari costume/disguise at Judo and Zachary, and when Zachary goes to assist her boarding she thinks he's going to undo her disguise and she slaps him. Page 354.

Karol- Ghosh- 05/02

2. Neel is subject to a physical exam and the tattooing of his sentence on his body. The tattoo artist is a loyal subject of the former zemindar. Neel vows to always speak English in the future. He has been renamed. Themes: language, renaming, reversal of fortune, cleanliness.

For Neel who sees himself through lens of English values imprisonment at the hand of his lessors, "angry ape(s)," this is a reversal of fate for sure. The delousing, shaving, battery, and tattooing is only the tip of the ice berg he has no authority or hierarchy with which to orient himself. His insistence at maintaining his colonial identity through use of his adopted tongue is interrupted by "Raja-sah'b… Raja-sah'b…" in his native language by his father's loyal subject. The word "forger/alipore" and roman numerals for the year rename him as a object of the same culture he had been a subject.  

Will - Ghosh - 5/2

"What's it to me?  It wasn't for my own sake that I kept purdah - it was because you and your family wanted it.  And it means nothing now:  we have nothing to preserve and nothing to lose." (248)

When Neel's wife Malati and his son come to meet him in jail, Neel is shocked that his wife isn't covering her head with her sari.  It is surprising that Malati says she only kept her pure lifestyle because Neel wanted it.  Neel is supposedly so liberal, and he earlier in the book expressed annoyance that his wife was so prudish.  But he clearly thinks of women in only a few ways:  wife, mother, or mistress.  He doesn't like the roles to get mixed up.  For example, from his wife he expects absolute loyalty, but it didn't surprise him when Elokeshi sold him out because to him she's mostly just a body.  Malati seems much smarter than Neel in this scene because she immediately realizes that keeping "pure" is ridiculous when her family's social station has been revealed as arbitrary.  All social positions are revealed as arbitrary and mutable in this novel:  Neel's royalty, Paulette's status as "European", Zachary's race, Nob Kissin's gender.

In a book like this the philosophy is that the characters are what they do.  So if Neel's actions run contrary to his ideals he is simply a fraud.  That might be why Ghosh has him immediately take care of Ah Fatt so the reader regains sympathy for him.  If the mechanisms of capitalism are so monolithic as to sweep all the characters away independent of their will, can they really be judged solely on their actions?  This novel doesn't seem to have as strong an idea of human agency like in Naipaul, Rushdie, or Roy.  Characters are judged on their actions, and they can make their own fortune sometimes, but they are also often pushed along by external forces.  It often seems that more of life is allowance than will.

Rachel - Ghosh, 5/1

There are many instances of renaming in Sea of Poppies.  However, one particular incident - Baboo Nob Kissin's mistaking Zachary for a god - seemed the most engaging to me.  It's almost as though the person at the bottom of the racial hierarchy has been placed at the top of existence.  In this scene on page 152, Baboo Nob Kissin reads through the crew enlistment papers:

"...when at last he saw the notation beside Zachary's name - 'Black' - he uttered no wild cry of joy - it was rather with a sigh of quiet jubilation that he rested his eyes on the scribbled word that revealed the hand of the Dark Lord.  This was the confirmation he needed, he was certain of it - just as he was certain, also, that the messenger himself knew nothing of his mission.  Does an envelope know what is contained in the letter that is folded inside it?  Is a sheet of paper aware of what is written upon it?  No, the signs were contained in the transformation that had been wrought during the voyage: it was the very fact of the world's changeability that proved the presence of divine illusion, of Sri Krishna's leela."

Babbo Bon Kissin becomes ecstatic and asks Zachary a set of enthusiastic, religiously-driven questions.  To Zachary, however, the interrogation is bothersome, intrusive, and perhaps impolite.  Given Ghosh's obvious political leanings, I thought it was a commentary about how those who are on the bottom of the social ladder are closest to God.  But sometimes the best way to express a serious theme is a light-hearted case of mistaken identity.

Joseph-Ghosh-5/2

2. Neel is subject to a physical exam and the tattooing of his sentence on his body. The tattoo artist is a loyal subject of the former zemindar. Neel vows to always speak English in the future. He has been renamed. Themes: language, renaming, reversal of fortune, cleanliness.




Neel's English, right in the heat of his abuse, is itself a symbol of conquest. It is not only his body that is controlled, but his language as well. Ghosh writes, 'But such was the urgency of this desire that words failed him and he could think of nothing to say; no words of his own would come to mind--only stray lines from passages that he had been made to commit to memory: '....this is the excellent foppery of the world...to make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon and the stars..' Such a poetic line is immediately undermined by the next remark: 'bend him over, check his arse....(283)'

In the tattoo scene, it is interesting to note that Neel returns to his body. In the short span of less than a couple of pages, he returns to his solitary prison. Ghosh writes, "it was as if the body that he had thought to have vacated were taking revenge on him for having harbored that illusion, reminding him that he was its sole tenant, the only being to whom it could announce its existence through its capacity for pain.(285)' This is a very dramatic passage, but it's immediately undermined when Ghosh announces that the ink was watered down and Neel had even fallen asleep on the lap of the tattooist.