LM/37 LINGUE E LETTERATURE EUROAMERICANE Curriculum: Culture e letterature dei paesi di lingua inglese

1
LM/37LINGUE E LETTERATURE EUROAMERICANECurricul
um Culture e letterature dei paesi di lingua
inglese

• L-LIN/10
• LETTERATURE DEI PAESI di LINGUA INGLESE I
• 1 CORSO (CFU 8)
•  
• Prof. Rossella Ciocca

2
 Family and Indianness
Tradizionale luogo di costruzione identitaria
primaria sia in termini di genere sessuale che in
termini di casta e di affiliazione religiosa, la
famiglia occupa nella struttura sociale indiana
un posto ancora centrale. Nella nuova India
globalizzata e delle liberalizzazioni, essa
diventa sito di potenziale contestazione dei
modelli tradizionali ma anche, soprattutto nella
dimensione diasporica, luogo di ricostruzione
nostalgica di una indianità originaria
incontaminata. Il corso mira a indagare in un
immaginario narrativo e filmico contemporaneo la
tensione tra la tendenza a rinnovare ruoli e
valori della famiglia e quella a riconsacrarla
come luogo deputato alla preservazione della
indianità. 
3
bibliografia

• J. Lahiri, The Namesake, London and New York,
  Harper Perennial, 2004M. Ali, Brick Lane,
  London, Black Swan, 2004Manju Kapur, Home,
  London, faber faber, 2006 Saadat Hasan Manto,
  Toba Tek Singh (photocopies)
• Priyamvada Gopal, The Indian English Novel.
  Nation, History, and Narration, Oxford and New
  York, O. U. P., 2009 (chapters 1 5 7 8)B. D.
  Metcalf and T. R. Metcalf, A Concise History of
  India, Cambridge, Cambridge U. P., 2002Jigna
  Desai, Beyond Bollywood The cultural politics of
  South Asian Diasporic Film, London Routledge,
  2003 (chapters 6 8)
• R.Ciocca Corpi di donne, storie di donne in
  Brick Lane di Monica Alì  

4

• Materiali in fotocopia da
• B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths, H. Tiffin (eds.), The
  Postcolonial Studies Reader, London, Routledge,
  1995M. Foucault, La volontà di sapere, Milano,
  Feltrinelli, 1988 H. K. Bhabha (ed.), The
  Location of Culture, London and New York,
  Routledge, 1994 S. Rushdie, Step Across this
  Lines, London, Vintage, 2003
• FilmografiaFire (Deepa Mehta, 1996)Monsoon
  Wedding (Mira Nair, 2001) Kabhi Khushi Kabhie
  Gham... (Karan Johar, 2001)

5
Indian states
6
INDIA MOSAIC OF IDENTITIES

• LINGUISTIC VARIETY
• Indian languages, 2 main families Indo-European
  (Hindi, Urdu, Hindustani, Punjabi, Bengali,
  Marathi, Gujarati, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi
  etc.) and Dravidian (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada,
  Malayalam et al.)

• RELIGIOUS PLURALITY
• Hinduism, Islamism, Christian creeds, Sikkism,
  Jainism, Buddhism, Animism, Parseeism
  (Zoroastrianism)

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9
Indian religions distribution
10
Indo-Arian and Dravidian
11
PLURAL but RIGID SOCIAL STRUCTURE

•  
• Caste endogamous group or collection of groups
  bearing a common name and having the same
  traditional occupation, sharing the tradition of
  a common origin and common tutelary deities.
•  
• BRAHMANA (priests today intellectuals and
  managers) mouth
• KSHATRYA (warriors and kings) arms
• VAISYA (land owners, traders) legs
• SHUDRA (hand workers, peasants, servants,)
• feet
• Outcast people
• dalit (broken, oppressed)
• Harijan (Gods son) introduced by Gandhi

12
The division of society into four colours or
castes (Varna) was developed in the Vedic period.
(described in Manus code).The God Brahma
created the primeval man from clay. The 4 varna
derived from his limbs.
13
Origins of the system of castes 
Main literary works of the Vedic period(ancient
age, c. 1600-600 B.C.) Rig-Veda (hymns, prayers
and spells) Upanishads (explanatory comments on
sacred texts) Mahabharata and Puranas (epic
narrations)
14
The main story of Mahabharata deals with a
conflict several generations long over dynastic
succession in the Bharata family that is told in
about 24.000 stanzas. The epic in its textual
form contains numerous interpolated commentaries
on matters of religion and philosophy, genealogy,
history, folklore, and myth that quadruple its
length to about 100.000 stanzas. Through oral
transmission the epic saw an almost never-ending
accretion.
15
Indian HistoryANCIENT INDIATraces of man
from early PaleolithicAryan invasion theory
(recently questioned) about the middle of II
millennium B.C. India was invaded from northwest
by the Aryans who established in the subcontinent
a unifying civilization. The gradual change of
color from light to dark skin as we move
southwards fits in with a pattern of invasion
which gradually pushed the previous populations
before it.On the other hand modern excavations
brought to light the existence of urban
civilizations, antedating the Aryan period,
extensively devoted to trade with Mesopotamia
(about 2500-1900 B.C.)
16
INDUS VALLEY OR HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION
17
MOHENJO DARO
18
The Aryansoriginal home possibly south
Russiapastoral and agricultural people living in
villagesmade no attempt to occupy the cities
they overcameinferior in material civilization
superior in political and military organization
19
ARYAN INVASION OF INDIAARYAN MIGRATIONS
20
ARYANS AND DRAVIDIANS
21
The Aryan civilization moved eastwardSanskrit
emerged as national languageVI century B.C. end
of the Vedic period, a new intellectual and
spiritual climate see the rise of Buddhism and
Jainism 327-25 B.C. Alexander the Great s
invasion in North-west India
22
ALEXANDER the Greats invasion of India
23
 180 B.C. 200 A.D. foreign invasions in
northern India (Greeks, Parthians, Tukhara) III
century classical age of Indian civilization
Literature, art, science and philosophy evolved
the forms they were to retain in successive
yearsNorthern India was reunited under the
dynasty of the Guptas.  
24
Guptas dynasties

• Gupta reigns

• Classic art

25
650-1200 A.D. Dynastic rivalries, northern India
was divided into a number of separate states (the
Arab conquest of Sind in 712 was merely an
episode and it was not until Islam had been
firmly established in the area of modern
Afghanistan that the Moslem conquest of India
became possible)
26
ISLAMIC INDIAXIII- XVI cent. The Sultanate of
Delhi was ruled by 5 successive dynasties
(Metcalf, p.11- 15) In XIV cent. the sultanate
attained its greater extent reaching Kashmir.
After that it began to decline and divide into
different regional reigns. Incursions led by
Tamerlane occurred in 1399.
27
Sultanate of delhi
28
Mughal India

1526 beginning of the Mogul Empire Babur
descended from Tamerlane and Jenghiz Khan, his
ambition was to recover the territories of the
vast Mongolian empire. Ousted from central Asia
he had to take refuge in Afhganistan from which
he attacked India. At his death in 1530 he
controlled the greater part of northern India.
29
Phases of Mughal empires
30
Akbar (1556-1605) was the greatest Mogul emperor
extending his dominions, practising a
conciliatory policy towards Hindu subjects
31

• Shah Jahan (reigns 1627-1658, imprisoned by his
  son 1658-1666) patronized culture, the arts and
  architecture

• Taj mahal, regal tomb and the red fort of Agra

32
Aurangzeb (1658-1707) is considered the chief
cause of the decline of Mogul empire for his
political as well as religious intolerance and
bigotry. Hindus were excluded from public office,
some of their schools and temples were destroyed,
the tax on non-Moslems was reintroduced.
33
The successors were puppets controlled by
favourites and court factions, Northern India was
invaded by Nadir shah of Persia (Peacock throne
and Koh-i-Nor diamond were ransacked). Foreign
invasion were not the causes but the symptoms of
Mogul decline.
34
Babur the conquerorand the decadent last emperor
35
Mughal islamic art

• miniatures

• Mosaics, majolica

36
Mughal Art(refined court life)

• watercolor

• watercolor

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COLONIAL INDIA european settlements

• Portoguese India

• The quest for India was begun by Portugal. In
  1498 Vasco da Gama anchored off Calicut, in 1500
  Cochin became the first trading headquarters in
  India, Goa became the capital of Portuguese
  possessions.

38
British empire
39
British Raj
40
British Raj in XIXth century

• A mix of direct and indirect rule

41

• The English East India Company was established in
  1600. In the first half of XVII cent. it obtained
  various concessions from the Mogul Empire first
  trading posts were Surat, Agra, then Calcutta and
  later on Bombay. The commercial settlements were
  soon fortified. Rivalry arose with the
  Portuguese, defeated by the English fleet.

• In XVIII cent. the European rivals were English,
  French and Dutch. Gradually the East India
  company emerged as the dominant authority it was
  able to obtain the concession to collect and
  administer the revenues in Bengal, Bihar and
  Orissa paying the emperor an annual tribute.

42

• Indian Mutiny 1857 the great revolt of the Bengal
  native army led to transference of government to
  the crown. Due to many causes it was accompanied
  by rebellion of the population and some of
  chieftains. The pretext for revolt was the
  introduction of a new rifle whose cartridges,
  lubricated with pigs and cows grease, had to
  have their ends bitten off by the sepoys.

• Indian Mutiny
• Or
• Indian Rebellion

43
1858 Government of India act1876 Victoria
Empress of IndiaThe British empireCulture
education politics society economy

• Pros?

Against

• Paternalism
• Racism (town conception, admission to civil
  service)
• Militarism, authoritarianism (Amritsar massacre)
• Exploitation (colonial economy)
• Reinforcement of caste system and religious
  divisions (divide et impera)

• Unification of the country
• Codification of laws
• Use of English as vehicular language
• Cultural vitality of anglicised élites
• Technological development (trains, telegraph,
  mail service)
• Social reforms (age of consent bill, abolition of
  sati)
• Unified Educational system

44
Towards independenceGandhian non violent
movementII world war The Congress and the
Muslim League India Pakistan and civil war
45
In 1946 after a series of violent riots and
fights between Hindu Sikhs and Muslims, the
Congress Party decided to accept the request of
the Muslim League for a separate and independent
Muslim state. The British authorities were
informed and in three months Sir Cyril Radcliffe
drew Wagah (successively sadly known as the line
of hatred)
46
The narration of the nationGandhi and Nehru,
the noble fathers of the nation 1947 Nehru A
Tryst with Destiny
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The narration of the nationIndia 1947-8

• The bright side Independence celebrations

• The dark side
• Partition and civil war

49
We crossed the border at Wagah. I dont know
what I had been expecting. Blue rivers and green
plains, tigers and elephants, forest-covered
mountains. All the wonders we had been promised
about the Indian side. But the landscape didnt
change. It had the same scrub and wild brush, the
same dirt and heat. (Manil Suri, The Age of
Shiva)
50
The territorial wound
Muslims said the Hindus had planned and started
the killing. According to the Hindus, the Muslims
were to blame. The fact is, both sides killed.
Both shot and stabbed and speared and clubbed.
Both tortured. Both raped. (K. Singh, Train to
Pakistan) Saadat Hasan Manto, Toba Tek Singh
(photocopies)
51
Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-55)
Saadat Hasan Manto was born in Punjab, after a
turbulent adolescence, he first became a
translator from English to Urdu, then a
journalist, a critic and a film writer he
published a novel, three collections of essays,
seven collections of radio plays and over 250
short stories.
52
Mantos life and work
Manto was a difficult person and a controversial
author prosecuted many times for his so called
sex oriented expressions. His topics ranged
from socio-economical injustice to the typical
hypocrisy of traditional South Asian masculinity.
In his stories he treated sex, incest and
prostitution he depicted exploited women as main
characters and never failed to underscore the
abuses women were subjected to. His obscenity
consisted in never accepting the usual way in
morality and his personal biography as a
spendthrift, an alcoholic and gambler didnt
help. When Partition took place, he felt forced
to move from Bombay, his loved city of adoption
where he was very well known and active in the
movie industry, to Lahore where his family had
already taken refuge. Muslim authors had began to
be seen with circumspection and sometimes with
open suspect even in the liberal milieu of film
production.
53
Manto in Pakistan
Migrating to Pakistan was nonetheless a fatal
mistake the film industry in Lahore stood badly
disrupted, he resorted to writing fiction as a
matter of fact some of his masterpieces date
precisely this period, but publication for him
became increasingly difficult and, in various
occasions, he was, for alleged blasphemy,
sentenced to money penalties and even
imprisonment. He also spent a period in a mental
hospital and after only seven years in Pakistan
he died falling victim to liver Cirrhosis.
54
INDEPENDENT INDIA 1948 Gandhi murdered by a Hindu
fundamentalist Nehru and the new Indian order,
Zamindari abolition (V. Seth, A Suitable Boy)
Gandhis Dynasty Indira Gandhi (remove poverty
campaign) Emergency
55
Sanjay Gandhis child birth control (Rohinton
Mistry, A Fine Balance) Communalist policy, The
golden temple of Amritsar assassination by Sikh
bodyguard Rajiv Gandhis economic liberalism,
communalist policy and assassination by Tamil
terrorist
56
CONTEMPORARY INDIA Vivacity and
contrasts Liberalism in economy, technological
innovation, cultural globalization, backward
castes policy, religious tensions, nuclear
weapons, Kashmir unsolved question, female
emancipation and persecution (S. Rusdie, Indias
50th anniversary)
57
THE ENGLISH NOVEL IN INDIA Thomas Macaulay, A
minute on Indian Education, 1835 English
Education act, 1835 G. Viswanathan, The
Beginnings of English Literary Study in British
India
58

• THEORETICAL ANALYTICALPERSPECTIVES
• Gramsci, Foucault, Bhabha
• Gramscian persuasion about primacy of culture
• in the exercise of power
• The supremacy of a social group manifests itself
  in two
• ways as domination and as intellectual and
  moral leadership.
• It seems clear that there can, and indeed must
  be
• hegemonic activity even before the rise of
  power, and that
• one should not count only on the material force
  which power gives in order to exercise an
  effective leadership
• (Prison Notebooks)
• (British books constituted about 95 of book
  imports in India between 1850 and 1900)

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60
2) Multi-focal multi-centred nature of Power
relationships M. Foucault, La volontà di sapere,
pp. 82-6
3) Overcoming binary representation of the
relation Colonizer/colonized H. Bhabha, The
Location of Culture The language of critique is
effective not because it keeps forever separate
the terms of the master and the slave, but to
the extent to which it overcomes the given
grounds of opposition and opens up a space of
translation a political object that is new,
neither the one nor the other, properly alienates
our political expectations, and changes, as it
must, the very forms of our recognition of the
moment of politics.
61
My illustration attempts to display the
importance of the hybrid moment of political
change Here the transformational value of change
lies in rearticulation, or translation, of
elements, that are neither the One nor the
Other but something else besides, which
contests the terms and territories of
both. Cultures are never unitary in
themselves, nor simply dualistic in the relation
of Self to Other
62
The reason a cultural text or system of meaning
cannot be sufficient unto itself is that the act
of cultural enunciation the place of utterance
is crossed by the différance of writing. The
production of meaning requires that these two
spaces be mobilised in the passage through a
third space which constitutes the discursive
conditions of enunciation that ensure that the
meaning and symbols of culture have no primordial
unity or fixity that even the same signs can be
appropriated, translated, rehistoricised and read
anew. agency is the activity of the
contingent. agency is realized outside the
author.
63
Indigenization of the novel

• a transaction between two unequal, and
  unequally motivated, sides in an encounter that,
  despite its unevenness, was still characterized
  by exchange of some sort.
• (P. Joshi)
• Indian readers then writers transmuted an
  imported and alien form into local needs that
  inspired and sustained them across many decades.
  (P. Joshi)

64
Cultural colonization

• English Literature of serious standard was
  introduced to educate colonized people. 
• British books constituted 95 of book imports
  into India between 1850 and 1900 and were present
  in equivalent percentages among Indian library
  holdings.

65
Consumption practices

• Numerous public and circulating libraries emerged
  to provide books at small expense or for free.
• While fiction constituted about a third of the
  total holdings of a library it was requested up
  to three times more often than the other forms.
  
• Indians preferred popular fiction romance and
  melodrama resonated with the circularity and
  intricacy of the epic plot of, for example, the
  Mahabharata and the Ramayana full of
  interconnections and coincidences.

66
Reading public

• The reading public included civil servants,
  university and school teachers, students, minor
  ranks of the aristocracy, merchants, clerks. It
  was predominantly male and metropolitan. A
  greater majority read English novels translated
  into regional language.

67
The novel as a site of agency

• The novel acquired a social agency that was
  peculiarly Indian. It became a new form involved
  in inventing and representing the self it
  provided its readers with a new language for
  figuring out the emerging social relations
  associated with modernity. In many cases the
  novel with its populistic and sentimentalist
  overtones became one of the most powerful
  vehicles for anti-colonial feelings.

68
Locations of agency

• The majority of literary English production
  entered India through the ports of Calcutta and
  Bombay. These two capitals were more open to
  Western cultural influence and at the same time
  gave life to the most powerful anti-colonial
  movements (The Great Mutiny and the Swadeshi
  movement emerged in Bengal, Gandhi from Bombay
  Presidency)

69
From reading to producing

• Sometimes Indian authors gave up English and
  retained the novel form
• Bankim Chandra Chatterjee wrote in Bengali
  although he was also an essayist, historian,
  philosopher and social thinker his fame rested on
  his novels he was called Scott of Bengal.
  Anandamath, 1882, a historical novel is his most
  widely known work the setting is XVIII century
  rural Bengal, a time of famine during which a
  local insurgency seeks to overthrow a cruel and
  unjust political order of weak and decadent
  Muslim rulers and British tax collectors.

70
The mystic leader of the rebellion recurs to the
figure of Mother India ravaged by occupiers. The
historical dislocation served as a device to host
contemporary political feelings. A past in which
Indians are present as actors and not as passive
and defeated people. As the novel passed from
serialised to book form it underwent a
progressive softening of its anti-colonial tones,
often replacing the term English with Muslim.
71
Various editions of the novel

• The movie released in 1952

72

• In 1932 4 writers published in Urdu a collection
  of innovative short stories Angarey (Burning
  Embers) characterized by frank depiction of sex
  and a general irreverence towards religion. (ex
  a wet dream during a nap with the head on an open
  Koran) The book was condemned from Mosques
  pulpits as un-Muslim the British government for
  fear of public riots banned the book.

73

• In response the 4 writers wrote a manifesto
  which was to become the first document of the
  All-India Progressive Writers Association
• The movement was equally directed against
  internal orthodoxy and ignorance as well as
  foreign domination
• One of the 4 was Ahmed Ali, Twilight in Delhi
  (1940)

74
From Urdu to English

• Alis use of English is partly to reach the
  widest possible audience both in India and
  abroad. However Ali imports into his English
  novel Urdu forms borrowed from poetry and ghazals
  that are themselves the product of borrowings
  from Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani(P. Joshi)

75
Twilight in Delhi records the effects of cultural
and social decay on a Delhi Muslim family in
particular the patriarch Mir Nihal has a
sensitive awareness of past greatness but little
comprehension of the ongoing demise. The action
takes place between 1911(coronation in Delhi of
George V) and 1919 (Rowlatt Bills which allowed
British judges to try cases without juries)
76
From English to the Indian novel in
Indian-English the revolution of S. Rushdie

• A fiction written in a robustly vernacular
  English, manifestly hybrid, mixing the novel with
  diverse narrative forms both of the modern
  languages of cinema, television, journalism etc.
  and of old traditional Indian genres such as the
  oral epic

77
The watershed Midnights Children

• I became a writer at the moment I found a
  narrative voice for Midnights Children and that
  was finding a literary equivalent of that oral
  narrative from India that had kept the audience
  rapt for thousands of years

78
Oral tradition

• While Bankims narrator took its cue from the
  serious and judgemental narrator of the written
  epic, Rushdies clearly comes from the jesting,
  jocular figure of the oral tradition whose
  fallacy inspired the unreliable narrator in M.C.,
  Saleem Sinai
•  

79
All-comprehensiveness of M.C.

• Saleem Sinai states that an entire universe can
  be understood from his life his personal story
  reflecting Indias history. (a commonplace for an
  audience raised on the Mahabharata Whatever is
  in the Mahabharata can be found elsewhere but
  what isnt in it can be found nowhere.

80
Midnights Children

• Multiplying Meaning

• History

• Whereas Bankims narrator helped stabilize
  meaning, Rushdies, taking his inspiration from
  the circular structure of the oral epic and the
  tendency to change and adjust while repeating,
  multiplies meaning.
•  

• History in M.C. is not so much rendered fantasy,
  as fantasy and fabulation are rendered possible
  and even respectable forms of acquiring
  historical knowledge.

81
The novels agency

• In the hands of Rushdie the novel becomes a means
  to address issues surrounding modernity such as
  citizenship, subjectivity, identity, community
  and communalism, religion and politics, nation
  and nationalism besides aesthetical concerns
  about meta-fiction, inter- textual play, the role
  of the narrator, narrative perspectivism etc.
• Thre Moors Last Sigh, pp. 4-5

82
The novels agency nation and narration

• Rushdie creates a curious myth of the nation
  instead of celebrating its moment of glorious
  birth after a heroic liberation struggle, he
  interrogates its unglamorous middle age tainted
  by communal unrest and the threat of separatist
  violence.
• Homi, K. Bhabha, Nation and Narration (p.33, 35,
  37, 38)

83
The novels agency

• But in seizing the authority to tell their own
  versions of history, sociology, politics, his
  novels vindicate the right to master their own
  fantasies and world pictures. The fact that these
  novels exist marks the liberation of an Indian
  voice from the official and objective reality
  answering the mandate of imperialist culture.
  They articulate versions of Indian history and
  identity rendering them plural, just legends
  that make up reality, revealing in a
  post-modernistic way the fictional nature of
  reality itself.

84
The contemporary Indian novel in English

• In 1980 S. Rushdies Midnights Children
  transformed the Indian novel in English in an
  international phenomenon opening the way to
  dozens of ensuing literary cases.

85
Indian writers in English

• before Rushdie
• Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, R. K. Narayan,
  Khushwant Singh, V. S. Naipaul, Kamala
  Markandaya, Anita Desai (she already wrote but
  declared a debt to Rushdie) et al.

• after Rushdie
• Shashi Deshpande, Shashi Tharoor, Amitav Ghosh,
  Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Chandra, Rukun
  Advani, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Anita Nair, Manju
  Kapur, Vikas Swarup, Kiran Desai, , Kamala Das,
  Aravind Adiga

86
Diasporic voices

• V. S. Naipaul, Hanif Kureishi, Monica Ali, Nadeem
  Aslam, Jhumpa Lahiri, Rohinton Mistry, Bapsi
  Sidhwa, Amid Chauduri, Chitra Divakaruni,
  Ardashir Vakil, et al.
• Indian Diaspora
• Before Partition towards the empire (Mauritius,
  Fiji, Tanzania, Kenia, South Africa, Trinidad as
  indentured labourers)
• After Partition GB, USA, Canada as emigrants

87
Priyamvada Gopal, The Indian English Novel.
Nation, History, and Narration, Oxford and New
York, O. U. P., 2009

• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Making English India
• Chapter 5 Midnights Legacies
• Chapter 7 Family Matters
• Chapter 8 The Literature of Migration

88
Monica Ali

• Ali was born in Dhaka,
• Bangladesh, to a Bangladeshi father and English
  mother, moving to England at the age of three,
  where she was raised. She is the author of Brick
  Lane, her debut novel which was shortlisted for
  the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2003.
• Other Novels
• Alentejo Blues (2007)
• In the Kitchen (2010)

89

• Brick Lane named after Brick Lane, a street at
  the heart of London's Bangladeshi community
  follows the life of Nazneen, a Bangladeshi woman
  who moves to Tower Hamlets in London at the age
  of 18 her English consisting of "sorry" and
  "thank you" to marry an older man, Chanu who is
  twice her age, with a face like a frog, a
  tendency to quote Hume. He is pompous and kindly,
  full of plans, none of which ever come to
  fruition, and then of resentment at Ignorant
  types who don't promote him or understand his
  quotations from Shakespeare or his Open
  University race, ethnicity and class module".

90

• The book was adapted to a film of the same title
  in 2007.

91

• Controversy
• The novel caused controversy within the
  Bangladeshi community in Britain because of what
  certain groups perceived as negative portrayal of
  people from the region. The majority of
  Bangladeshis living in Bricklane are originally
  from Sylhet. Parts of the community were opposed
  to plans by Ruby Films to film parts of the novel
  in the Brick Lane area, and formed the "Campaign
  Against Monica Ali's Film Brick Lane". The film,
  starring well-known Indian actress Tannishtha
  Chatterjee was successfully made and distributed
  both in the UK and internationally.

92
BRICK LANE

• The Mother
• The Sister
• The Daughters
• The Friend Nazneen
• The Husband
• The Lover
• The Husband
• The Lover

93

• Jhumpa Lahiri
• (born 1967) is a Bengali-American author. She
  was born in London the daughter of Bengali
  Indian immigrants. Her family moved to the United
  States when she was three Lahiri's mother wanted
  her children to grow up knowing their Bengali
  heritage, and her family often visited relatives
  in Calcutta.

94
When she began kindergarten her teacher decided
to call her by her pet name Jhumpa, because it
was easier to pronounce than her "proper names".
Lahiri recalled, "I always felt so embarrassed by
my name.... You feel like you're causing someone
pain just by being who you are." Lahiri's
ambivalence over her identity was the inspiration
for the ambivalence of Gogol, the protagonist of
her novel The Namesake, over his unusual name.
95
Lahiri's debut short story collection,
Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the 2000
Pulitzer Prize. Her stories address sensitive
dilemmas in the lives of Indians or Indian
immigrants, with themes such as marital
difficulties, miscarriages, and the disconnection
between first and second generation United States
immigrants. Lahiri later wrote, "When I first
started writing I was not conscious that my
subject was the Indian-American experience. What
drew me to my craft was the desire to force the
two worlds I occupied to mingle on the page as I
was not brave enough, or mature enough, to allow
in life." The collection received mixed
reactions in India, where reviewers were
alternately enthusiastic and upset Lahiri had
"not painted Indians in a more positive light." A
second collection of short stories Unaccustomed
Earth was published in 2008.
96
Her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted
into a movie of the same title by Mira Nair.
97
The Namesake The story spans over thirty years
in the life of the Ganguli family. The
Calcutta-born parents emigrated as young adults
to the United States, where their children, Gogol
and Sonia, grow up experiencing the constant
generational and cultural gap with their parents.
Lahiri's writing is characterized by simple
language, her characters navigate between the
cultural values of their homeland and their
adopted home. Lahiri's fiction tends to be partly
autobiographical and frequently draws upon her
own experiences as well as those of her parents,
friends, acquaintances, and others in the Bengali
communities with which she is familiar.
98
Manju Kapur lives in Delhi and has three
daughters. She is a professor of English at
Miranda House. Her first novel, Difficult
Daughters, received the Commonwealth Award for
the Eurasian region. The book is set during
India's independence struggle and is partially
based on the life of Kapur's own mother.
99
Novels Difficult Daughters, 1998 A Married Woman,
2003. Home, 2006 The Immigrant, 2009. Custody,
2011.
100
Home, 2006 When their traditional business -
selling saris - is increasingly sidelined by the
new fashion for jeans and stitched salwar
kameez, the Banwari Lal family must adapt. But
instead of branching out, the sons remain
apprenticed to the struggling shop and the
daughters are confined to the family home. As
envy and suspicion grip parents and children
alike, the need for escape - whether through
illicit love or in the making of pickles or the
search for education - becomes ever stronger.
101
plot

• The novel is an account of three generations.
  Banwari Lal comes to India after partition and,
  with the help of his wife's jewellery, carves out
  a sari business in Delhi. Success comes slowly,
  and in the early years he is forced to marry his
  daughter, Sunita, to a man of dubious
  credentials. Even as the family gets richer,
  Sunita is abused and then, perhaps, murdered by
  her husband - leaving behind a son, Vicky, to be
  brought up by the Banwari Lals.

102

• Vicky becomes a bone of contention. his
  grandfather feels guilty about what happened to
  Sunita and hence responsible for him, but his
  sons and their growing families have less reason
  to make space for him.
• With the death of the benevolent Banwari Lal,
  the shop is modernised and the family house
  changed into self-contained flats. The joint
  family and even the business are fragmenting the
  price of both cohesion and fragmentation being
  paid in different ways by different characters.
  One of these is Nisha, whose careers as
  student/woman in love/worker/mother are followed
  in details.

103

• Home belongs to what must now be counted as a
  subgenre of Indian writing in English domestic
  fiction, stories of weddings and deaths, arranged
  marriages and love affairs, cooking and gossiping
  in a joint or an extended family in south Asia
  or, with differences, among south Asian
  immigrants in the West.

104
Mira Nair

• The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2013)
• Amelia (2009)
• Migration (2008)
• The Namesake (2006)
• Vanity Fair (2004)
• Monsoon wedding (2001)
• Mississippi Masala (1991)
• Salaam Bombay! (1988)

105
Mira Nair

• From the realism of Salaam Bombay! I moved on to
  the hyperrealism of Monsoon Wedding starting with
  a base that is authentic. In some ways this is a
  version of Bollywood, a genre strictly and
  uniquely Indian

106

• A story set in the modern upper-middle class of
  India, where telecommunications and a western
  lifestyle mix with old traditions, like the
  arranged wedding young Aditi accepts when she
  ends the affair with a married TV producer. The
  groom is an Indian living in Texas, and all
  relatives from both families, some from distant
  places like Australia, come to New Delhi during
  the monsoon season to attend the wedding. The
  four-day arrangements and celebrations will see
  clumsy organization, family parties and drama,
  dangers to the happy end of the wedding, lots of
  music and even a new romance for the wedding
  planner with the housemaid.

107
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001) Through smiles
through tears or Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes
Sadness

• Subtitle Its all about loving your parents
• Director Karan Johar
• It was the highest earning Indian film in the
  overseas market until 2006, when its record was
  broken by Johar's third film

108
Plot

• Rahul is the adopted son of "Yash" Raichand,
  a rich and famous business man, and his wife
  Nandini. Their biological son, Rohan, is younger
  than Rahul. The father is very proud of his
  family's status and traditions, and instills in
  his sons a great respect for their elders. When
  Rahul returns home from university in England, he
  meets and falls deeply in love with a poor girl
  named Anjali, who lives with her father and her
  little sister Pooja.
• Yash decides to arrange Rahul's marriage to
  his affluent friend's daughter, Naina. Rahul,
  however, breaks the engagement and admits that he
  wants to

109
marry Anjali this angers Yash, who berates Rahul
for not considering Anjali's social status and
for disobeying his father. Rahul, horrified that
he has hurt his father, apologizes to Yash and
promises to do whatever is asked of him. He goes
to tell Anjali that he cannot marry her, only to
find that her father has died suddenly. Unable to
bear the thought of Anjali and Pooja alone and
unsupported in the world, Rahul marries Anjali on
the spot. When he brings her home, his enraged
father disowns him, and blames Rahul's actions on
the fact that he is not of Raichand blood. Rahul,
believing that Yash no longer loves him leaves
with his wife and her sister. Ten years later, on
his way home from university, Rohan stops to meet
his maternal and paternal grandmothers and
overhears them discussing the split they tell
him the whole story.
110
When he goes to his parents' home, some of
Anjali's old friends tell him that Rahul has
settled his family in London. Vowing to bring
Rahul and Anjali home and repair everyone's
broken relationships, Rohan tells his parents
that he wants to go to London to study Yash
reluctantly agrees. In London, Rahul has started
his own business and lives comfortably with
Anjali, their son Krish, Pooja, hiding great
grief behind a happy facade. Upon arrival, Rohan
finds that Pooja is also a student at the
university he attends. He tells her who he is and
asks her to help him bring the family back
together. He soon becomes a part of the family
and reminds Rahul and Anjali of how much they
miss India and their parents, drawing pangs of
guilt in Rahul.
111
Slowly, the truth comes out and he tries to
convince Rahul to go back to India. He even goes
so far as to trick Yash and Nandini into coming
to London with the hope that Yash will reconcile
with Rahul. His plan fails, but Rahul and
Nandini share a joyful reunion. At this point
Anjali, too, attempts to persuade Rahul to go
back to India and make up with his father. Rahul,
convinced that his father does not love him and
wants nothing to do with him, remains adamant
until they learn that Yash's mother has died, and
that her last wish was for Rahul, Yash, and Rohan
to light her funeral pyre together. Rahul,
Anjali, Krish, and Pooja go back to India to
participate in the funeral, but they do not speak
to Yash.
112
Finally Nandini confronts Yash and tells him, for
the first time in ten years, that he was wrong in
cutting ties with Rahul, whom he had brought into
their home with such love and care. This leaves
Yash stunned, and at odds with himself. Rohan
finally manages to convince Rahul to visit their
parents' house for Nandini's sake. They go with
Anjali and Pooja, and find Yash humbled and sad.
Yash asks for Rahul to forgive him and berates
him for believing that his father did not love
him, and for not returning home sooner. Things
end happily, with Rohan and Pooja's wedding and a
belated celebration of Rahul and Anjali's
marriage.
113
Deepa Mehta (emigrated to Canada in 1973
Filmography Sam and Me (1991) Camilla (1994) Fire
(1996) Earth (1998) Bollywood/Hollywood
(2002) The Republic of Love (2003) Water
(2005) Heaven on Earth (2008) Cooking with Stella
(2008) (co-director) Midnight's Children -
based on the novel Midnight's Children by Salman
Rushdie (2010)
114
Trilogy of elements Fire 1996 1947-Earth
1998 Water 2005
115

• In the Ramayana Sita, Ramas wife, is kidnapped
  by Ravana.
• Once she is recued by her husband, Sita has to
  demonstrate her purity getting through fire
  without any damage
• In the movie by Mehta the myth is rewritten with
  reference to the characters of Radha and Sita
  and set in the city of New Delhi.

116
Plot Synopsis
The film's prologue takes place in a field of
flowers. Young Radha (Karishma Jhalani) relaxes
with her mother (Ramanjeet Kaur) and her father
(Dilip Mehta)...
Fire (1996)
ad feedback Ashok runs a family business that
sells takeout food that also has a video rental
store at the side. Ashok's extended family
includes his wife Radha, his brother Jatin, their
ailing mother Biji and their manservant Mundu,
all living under the same roof. Jatin, at the
insistence of Ashok and their mother, Biji,
agrees to marry the beautiful Sita in an arranged
marriage, although he is actually in love with
Julie, a Chinese-Indian. At first glance, you see
a happy middle-class family going through the
normal paces of everyday life. However, as the
layers are slowly peeled back, we find a
simmering cauldron of discontent within the
family, with almost every family member living a
lie.
117
Both marriages in the family turn out to be
emotionally empty, without love or passion. While
Ashok is an ascetic who has taken a vow of
celibacy, Jatin is a handsome ladies' man who is
still openly seeing Julie even after his marriage
to Sita. Ashok has pledged his total devotion to
a religious holy man, a swami, in order to purge
his life of worldly desires and temptations.
Radha, bound by her sense of duty to her husband,
agrees to go along with his wishes. With both
husbands ignoring their spouses' emotional and
sexual needs (albeit with reasons that are
totally opposite from each other), it is only a
matter of time before Radha and Sita look to one
another for comfort and to satisfy their own
passions. In this environment, it is only natural
that Sita and Radha become fast friends, and, in
time, much more than that. But their love is not
without its share of painful obstacles.
118
On its opening day in India, some movie theaters
were attacked by Hindu fundamentalists, and the
movie was eventually banned for religious
insensitivity. The film was banned in Pakistan
for the lesbian relationship that the movie plays
around.