The Sage of Tarun giri and Seven Old Seekers by Manoj Das.

                                                        

                            

      Manoj Das, being a Indian Writer, given a picture of Indian personalities. The story “The Sage of Tarun giri and Seven Old Seekers” deals with seven friends own lives and their problems.

Summary:   

    

        This is a story about a mysterious sage and his seven selfish old seven who seek his blessings to overcome the worries and anxieties of their life. The old bearded sage Tukan Baba weeps all the time and lives in a lonely cave. He comes out of his cave only on full moon nights. Hi disciple Medhananada has the mystic faith that whoever touches the feet of this spiritually enlighten sage in that blessed moon light night and seeks his blessings their all desires are fulfilled. The seven old man are convinced and there for make all the preparation to collect the blessing from Tukan Baba comes out smiling instead of weeping a rare occasion in a gap of twenty years. They miss the chance to seek the blessing for their material attitude and foolishness.

           Meanwhile Baba goes back in to the cave and the seekers in their dismay they forgotten to touch his feet and as a result they entreat Medhananada his trusted disciple that Baba should appear to them once again. In spite of Medhananada refuse that Baba would never come back again. These old egoistic materialists try to enter in the cave forcibly. After then a ferocious roar listen on the hill and what shown like pair of stars inside the dark trunked seemed to grow closer to them and of extreme fear they bounced back and rolled down the hill. 

 

         Through this story we come across two important things, one is mysticism and another occultism. There is a spiritual word beyond the rich of ordinary mortal and nobody can enter in to it unless he/she has purified his heart or developed his soul. The seven old seekers are great materialist and are ignorant of the ways of the sages. Baba’s weeping or smiling is too mysterious thing for them to understand so, they fail and have to wait for another twenty years during which they can be a lot of change in them to attain the spiritual bliss.  

        

           

Short story: The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe.

                                                                          

         
      "The Black Cat" is a sort story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of newspaper called The Saturday Evening Post. It is a study of the psychology of guilt.

Character:

The narrator: He is unnamed character of the story. He was an abusive bully and a murderer. He made home a living hell for his wife, pets, and himself. He's writing to us from his prison cell, on the eve of his scheduled death by hanging.

Narrator's wife: she is kind, giving, loyal, and even heroic at the end. The narrator says she has "in a high degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been distinguishing characteristic."

Pluto: Pluto is fine specimen of a cat. All black, large, fuzzy, and "and sagacious to an astonishing degree". He is blinded and ultimately murdered by his owner. 

The second cat: The second black cat looks almost exactly like Pluto. He's big, black, and missing an eye. The only difference is the white spot. The spot starts off innocently enough, but then grows into an image of the gallows, if the narrator can be believed.

The policeman: He comes in story at the end after murder of the second cat.   

                            

Summery:

         From his prison cell, the unnamed narrator is writing the story of how everything in his life fell apart. Since he will die the next day, he wants to set the record straight, and tells us the story of his life…

        From the day he is born, he is mild and kind. He loves animals and has lots of them. As he gets older up these qualities grow stronger. Taking care of his pets and hanging out with them is his favorite thing to do. His favorite animal companion is his dog.

         Before long, he gets married. His wife loves animals too, and fills the house with a variety of them. One of these is a humongous, all black, super-smart cat named Pluto. When the man starts drinking, his personality takes a turn for the worse. He starts physically and verbally abusing his wife and pets. One night, the narrator comes home from partying completely drunk. Thinking Pluto didn't want to hang out with him, he grabs the cat and cuts his eye out with a pen-knife.

         One morning, not long after the eye-gouging, the narrator is overcome with a perverse impulse. He hangs Pluto from a tree in his garden, murdering him. Writing from his jail cell, the narrator claims he did it precisely because he knew it was wrong. That night, the night of the murder, the man's house catches fire and burns down. Only the man, his wife, and one servant are left alive. But, they lose all their money in the flames, along with the house. When the narrator returns the next day, there is a crowd in his bedroom, looking at his bedroom wall. On the wall is the slightly raised image of a "gigantic cat" with a rope around its neck (11).

        Since he left the cat hanging all day and all night, he figures one of the neighbors cut it down and then threw it through his window to wake him up. Somehow it stuck in the plaster of the wall. This bothers the man for a long time.

         One night when he's out drinking, another black cat appears on the scene. This cat looks just like Pluto, except for the little white spot on his chest. The man takes the cat home, and his wife is quite pleased.

         When it is discovered that this cat is also missing an eye, the man begins to despise it, while the woman loves it all the more. After some time passes, the woman shows the man that the white spot on the cat's fur has grown. Oddly, the white spot now forms an image of "the GALLOWS!" (21). (The gallows is a wooden device used to hang people.)

         The man is too afraid of the cat to abuse it. The cat never leaves him alone for a moment, and even sits on his chest and breathes in his face when he is in bed. So, the man doesn't get any sleep. As his loathing of the cat increases, so does his physical and verbal abuse of his wife. One day he and his wife go down to the cellar of the crummy old house they live in now that they are poor. The cat follows them. In a fit of extreme irritation, the man tries to kill the cat with an axe. The woman stops him, and the man "burie[s] the axe in her brain," killing her (23).

        The narrator wonders how best to conceal the body? After much deliberation, the man decides to hide the body in a space behind the cellar wall. That night, the man sleeps peacefully for the first time in ages. The cat is nowhere to be seen.

         The cops come around, but the man has finesses them. No big deal. On the fourth day, still no cat. But, the police return and search the house again, especially the cellar. Right when they are about to leave, abandoning their search of the cellar, the narrator decides to start bragging about how well built the house is. He takes his cane and hits it against the spot in the wall where he's hidden his wife's body.

          A noise answers his knock! It is a sad sound, like a kid crying. It sounds horrible and desperate, but also victorious. The police are on it. They take down the wall only to find the dead body, with the cat on top of its head. And that's why the narrator is in jail, sentenced to death by hanging. The narrator had accidentally shut the cat up in the wall with the body.  

Design by Robert Frost

                           

                             
Poem:

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

About poem:

         This poem is written by Robert Frost. In which he describe design of god or destiny. For understanding of god's design he gave three example, White flower, spider and moth. Through these insect poet wont to say about design of destiny.


 Setting of the poem: 
                               

        The setting of the poem, like the theme itself, is very small. The speaker is looking back on a tiny memory, one that he would have forgotten long ago if it hadn't been so bizarre. All the action of the poem happens on top of a tiny flower.  
    
Summery: 

         The poem begins with a simple setup—the first three lines introduce us to the main characters. We have a big white spider on a white flower, poised to eat a white moth. The speaker sees this bizarre little albino meeting as some weird witches' brew, as all three are brought together for some awful reason.

         That observation leads the speaker to a series of questions: Why is this flower white, when it is usually blue? What brought the spider to that particular flower? What made the moth decide to flutter by right then?
 
           Frost concludes that if it were "design" that brought these three together, it must be some pretty dark design. In other words, it's not a comforting thought to think that God went out of his way just to make sure this moth got eaten. But that's the crucial "if" of the last line: if design does govern these small things. (What if—gulp—there's no design at all, and everything in life is just totally random occurrences?) The reader is left with just as many questions as Frost. This short poem takes a simple little thought and pushes us all the way to questioning the very nature of creation and life as we know it. Well played, sir. 

Theme: 

1)Fate and free will:
We're big on freedom, sure, but everything has its limits. For thousands of years, humans have taken comfort in the idea that, while we might make our own choices, someone or something is still in ultimate control of the universe. We like the idea that not everything is just coincidence. It makes us feel like there's a good reason (even if we can't grasp it) why we missed our bus and got splashed by a passing truck in the process. But in "Design," Frost sees the scary side of that idea. If a creator is in control, that means that this god must have a hand in everything, including all the terrible stuff.

2)Fear:
"Design" isn't a ghost story. Really nothing all that awful happens. A spider gets ready to eat a moth. It's the circle of life—get over it. But the philosophical argument that Frost develops begins to play with some of our deepest fears.  
 
3)Supernatural:
In "Design" there's a lot of supernatural stuff going on. We've got the big guns of the supernatural world: God and the cosmic forces that control our lives. But we also have the small potatoes of the other-worldly realm—witches, overweight spiders, and pale flowers. The whole poem is about big things and small things and whether those big and small things are controlled by superstition, by God, or even by nothing at all.

4)Existentialism:  
In "Design," Frost examines life as he finds it in the physical world and wonders about all the big questions: Why are we here? Where did we come from? Were we made this way? Those aren't exactly multiple choice, kids.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Hello reader,

         This blog is a part of my classroom activity on The white Tiger by Aravind Adiga. 

 Click here to show worksheet of given task.


 

 
                                                   

          The White Tiger is the debut novel by Indian author Aravind Adiga. It was first published in 2008 and won the 40th Man Booker Prize in the same year. In the novel, Balram is writing letter to Wen Jiabao who will visit India soon in the narrative. Balram is telling him the story of his life and he interwoven the India which he has faced in his lifetime. Balram is talking about The India which is actually can be considered as “Real” India in the narrative. The novel provides a darkly humorous perspective of India’s class struggle in a globalized world as told through a retrospective narration from Balram Halwai, a village boy. In detailing Balram's journey first to Delhi, where he works as a chauffeur to a rich landlord, and then to Bangalore, the place to which he flees after killing his master and stealing his money, the novel examines issues of religion, caste, loyalty, corruption and poverty in India. Ultimately, Balram transcends his sweet-maker caste and becomes a successful entrepreneur, establishing his own taxi service.

(1): How far do you agree with the India represented in the novel The White Tiger?

            In the novel ‘The white Tiger’ Protagonist of the novel Balram Halwai tells story of real India in form of letter to Wen Jiabao who will visit India soon. 

    

        Adiga criticize India through the perspective of Balram Halwai. He says that;

                          “If anyone knows truth about India it’s me”.

This line suggests that he has experienced the truth of India. In his letter he deconstructs the image of ‘shinning India’. 

         A Balram talks about Laxmangarh, where he was born, is in the northern part of India, in the area along the Ganges River which Balram describes as "the Darkness." It is in this part of India that the majority of the population lives, where raw sewage flows through the town, where there is no access to fresh drinking water. Balram tells the Chinese premier not to touch the Ganges, because it is a supposedly sacred river and frequent destination for every people even after death also:  

“No!—Mr. Jiabao, I urge you not to dip in the Ganga, unless you want your mouth full of feces, straw, soggy parts of human bodies, buffalo carrion, and seven different kinds of industrial acids.”

         Some of the funniest parts of the book ridicule the political system in India. Laxmangarh politics is dominated by "The Great Socialist," whose quotes rise above the crumbling public hospital without doctors. When the landlords get mad over the amount of bribes they have to give to "The Great Socialist" they form their own political party. Although Balram has never seen a ballot box he has voted in every Indian election. His birth date was made up by a school teacher in order to sell the vote.

          Balram narrates Indian education system through his school. He tells about corruption in his school by teacher. How students were given name and the behavior of teacher which is an archetype of school in all Indian villages. As he said,

“The teacher turned aside and spat—a jet of red paan splashed the ground of the classroom. He licked his lips.”

               Balram also said that:             

“The teacher had a legitimate excuse to steal the money—he said he hadn't been paid his salary in six months. He was going to undertake a Gandhian protest to retrieve his missing wages—he was going to do nothing in class until his paycheck arrived in the mail. Yet he was terrified of losing his job, because though the pay of any government job in India is poor, the incidental advantages are numerous.”

            So through this novel Adiga highly criticize education systems, democracy, river Ganga even Buddha and Gandhi also. So in this novel we find representation of India very well.

(2) Do you believe that Balram's story is the archetype of all stories of 'rags to riches'?

          

             Yes, at some point we can agree with this point. Balram was an ordinary driver and from that position he has became an entrepreneur. He has that insight to looking towards the world differently.  He has always ‘thinks big’, ‘dream big’ and positive attitude for doing work. We can apply here Dhirubhaism in Balram’s story as far as ‘rags to riches’ is concern but here Balram has used not only his hard work to become rich but he worked very smartly. He became rich not after his hard work but after killing his master. He became a murderer and then he became rich. So here we can say that Balram’s story is not archetype of all stories of 'rags to riches' because every story’s hero did not murder his master to get successes or became rich like Balram.

(3) "Language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique, deconstructive criticism aims to show that any text inevitably undermines its own claims to have a determinate meaning, and licences the reader to produce his own meanings out of it by an activity of semantic 'freeplay' (Derrida, 1978, in Lodge, 1988, p. 108). Is it possible to do deconstructive reading of The White Tiger? How? 

         Yes, it is possible that any text or novel deconstructed idea of novelist or author. In this novel Adiga use language as a sword. As novel begin that in first sense Balram talk about to Mr. Jiabao. He says that,

         “Neither you nor I can speak English but there are some things that can be said only in English”.

It means that Adiga knows about use of language as better way.

       This novel we also deconstructed on the basis of class conflict. Balram is servant and also driver of Honda city car. In India servant is always faithful to his master example like Hanuman. So here this idea of loyal or faithful servant of his master was deconstructed very artfully.

   (4) Is it possible to read The White Tiger in context of Globalization? 

            Yes, it is possible to read "The White Tiger" in the context of Globalization. Through out the novel we see some form of America seems to pop up in a key moment. for example when Balram is describing Ashok’s corruption on page 173,

 “you’ve got plenty of places to drink beer, dance, pick up girls, that sort of thing. A small bit of America in India.”  

 So here see effect of globalization clearly. India is being like America so here we see cultural diversity and open up new exiting world. Some how it is good thing but sometime it also harm to the culture. Next we see in the novel that Balram sees Ashok being transformed by the influence of American culture, the creeping globalization that is taking over Delhi.

 

Thank you...