Gandhi Now- Course Hero PDF

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CRITICAL ANALYSIS CIA-I ADDITIONAL ENGLISH

VAIBHAV SINGHVI 2022047

Gandhi Now By Salman Rushdie Gandhi Now is an essay written by Salman Rushdie. He is an Indian-born British writer wellknown for his allegorical novels which examine the historical and philosophical issues in society through his characters. He is known for his humor and dramatic prose style. In “Gandhi Now” Salman deconstructs the image of Gandhi which is in the minds of the people within India and abroad. He makes the readers rethink the personality of Gandhi and writes about the great leader from a different and shocking perspective. Salman begins the essay by talking about the image of Gandhi in the advertisement of Apple ironically saying Gandhi is modeling for Gandhi. He states that Apple is making use of Gandhi to convey a message about its corporate philosophy. Also, claiming that the advertisement is ironic because Gandhi was a man who hated modernism and technology and preferred a simple village life. He even would found the term “word processor” hateful. Now Rushdie asks us to think differently and says in his youth, Gandhi was a modern and westernized lawyer. Birla, an industrialist and very close friend of Gandhi, had said that Gandhi was modern than he was. But he chose to go back to the life of the middle ages. Now the Apple doesn’t want people to go back in the ages. It wants to use Gandhi as a tool to popularize its values in identifying it with the values of Gandhi which made him a saintly figure. Rushdie says Apple wanted to compare itself to Gandhi. Gandhi, a small and puny man, fought against the British rule and chased it out of India. Similarly, Apple a mal startup will overthrow the big Mac. Here Rushdie refers to the parable of David and Goliath from the Bible. Rushdie says Gandhi is up for grabs and can be used anyone wants. He is treated no more as a personality but is thought to be as a concept and a cultural symbol. He values given importance over his personality. Richard Attenborough’s movie Gandhi portrayed him as a great saint, a guru, and a savior like Jesus Christ who with his philosophy of non-violence made the British ashamed of themselves and leave India. The film suggested that your morality will inspire the morality of the enemy making him leave. This movie had a great impact on the contemporary freedom struggles. It made Gandhi an international personality and a great inspirational force. Rushdie says the idealized Gandhi is not perfect. He is dull and boring lacking humor and intelligence. Further, Rushdie wonders whether Gandhi can still be called a man because he has been raised to the status of a saint and used as a concept for various purposes. He says that the personality is full of contradictions. He fought bravely against the British but was afraid of the dark. Fighting against the British is a job that requires the utmost level of confidence, willpower, and courage. But being afraid of the dark (no light) is not possible. Maybe here the terms “dark” means something else instead of no light, another interpretation might be no hope, or no way out (deadlock). Gandhi insisted on the importance of being united because being unity brings strength. But he was not united in thought with Jinnah, which led to the presidency of Congress denied to Jinnah. This

resulted in Jinnah withdrawing from Congress starting a separatist Muslim League which eventually led to the partition of India. Gandhi was said to be modest and selfless. But when Jinnah was attacked for not calling him “Mahatma”. Here ‘Mahatma’ means “great-souled”. He remained silent, this act of silence shows that he isn’t actually ‘Mahatma’, if Gandhi is a great soul then he would have no cared about the title of mahatma and acted to even stop the attack. He lived the life of an ascetic. But Sarojini Naidu said it cost the nation a fortune to support Gandhi lead such a life. Gandhi supported villages over cities and agriculture over industries. But he was dependent on his friend who was a big industrial magnate, like G.D Birla. His hunger strikes could not stop violence and deaths, but he used the same weapon to fight against the workers who were fighting for their rights against his industrialist friend. Gandhi proposed to improve the condition of the untouchables now called Dalit’s. But they never accepted him as their leader and chose Dr. Ambedkar. The rival of Gandhi as their leader, showing a lack of trust and belief in Gandhi. He wanted the youth to follow Brahmacharya. It's about providing your mind and body with what it needs – and enjoys – without going to a place of excess. But he was married at the age of sixteen and was much into physical pleasures when his father was breathing his last. He believed the non-violence and passive resistance could move any force. Later, he accepted that they worked with the British but would not have worked with other forces. Further Rushdie states that there were other reasons for the British to loosen their hold on India, like the tension between Hindu and Muslim. Further Rushdie states that there were other reasons for the British to loosen its hold on India. Gandhi visualized India to be a highly religious country but what emerged after independence was a secular state. Even the staunch Hindu politicians who are determined to make India a Hindu country do not consider Gandhi as their leader or even mention his philosophy in their political agenda. Rushdie says that people today do not have time to praise the personality of Gandhi or analyze even the real causes of independence because they are too busy to worry gather and assimilate the many-sided truths. He adds that Gandhi has lost relevance or his importance in the country where he is called the father of the nation. The author states again that Gandhi has lost his relevance and the few handfuls of Gandhians who exist now are called cranks. Rushdie brings the viewpoints of various people who were with Gandhi to highlight the contradictions in his personality. Gandhi who gave up cosmopolitan life has become an international icon and a citizen of the world.

Grandfather By Jayanta Mahapatra Grandfather is a poem written by Jayanta Mahapatra. He is an Indian Poet. His style is simple and dealing with real-life problems and situations. The themes are often philosophical. He treats human emotions and sufferings in a very realistic way. The poem is based on the 1866 famine which struck Orissa. The poet writes about how the famine-affected the lives of the people and in particular his grandfather whom a staunch Hindu was compelled to convert to Christianity to escape the deadly clutches of hunger and poverty. He also deals in detail with the dilemma, fear, and humiliation experienced by the grandfather. The themes of the poem are mental Agony, Death of his Identity, and Effect of hunger (the hopeless situation of a man). The poet is reading the old diary of his grandfather. The words in the diary express the pain and suffering undergone by the grandfather. By reading it the poet comes to know about the painful and struggle-filled life of his grandfather and about the life at that time. The climate was very hot and dry. The land was fallow and barren. The people are wasting away due to lack of food. Everything and everybody is at a blank not knowing what to do. The grandpa is faced with the very toughest question in life. He has become weak and is standing on the edge of life between living and dying. He was thinking about the decision he is forced to take for the sake of his family. He stands thinking about the dangers facing his and his family’s life and wondering what he should do. The grandpa has spent several sleepless, cold, and hungry nights foreseeing his death and lacking the strength and ability to even cry at his fate. The grandpa was very young. He was defeated by the force of hunger and was made into a coward. So to protect himself and his family from dying due to hunger he converted to Christianity. His willpower has abandoned him and he abandoned the faith into which he was born and lived so far including all the rituals and practices and even the deities he has worshipped so far. The pangs of hunger had completely changed him. The poet asks that if the faith and religion did not provide food and comfortable living then what’s the use of sticking on to it is, so he left his faith and took a new faith which he did not know anything about. The life as a Christian chosen by the grandpa let him live while he continued to be a Hindu deep in his heart. Now, in the time of comfort and plenty, the poet and the on try to talk about the famine about which they have no real knowledge. A gap year an understanding is between the poet and his son and between the poet and his grandfather. For the son, his future is very clear, bright, and achievable. The poet wonders how his son will look at the life of the father and the grandpa. He thinks that he will think their lives were nothing but a loss or failure. Now the poet and the son look at the life of the grandpa in silence. The poet says that there is hope for the present generation. But the hope away from the grandpa. He refers to the chessboard and says how the move made by the grandpa whom he has not met has changed the life of the poet and his son. The knowledge of the suffering and the sacrifice made by the grandpa makes the poet and his son is silent. They want to know more about him and the type of life he had lived. They want to know how it will be to live to give the dignity to escape from dying. (Abandoning religion is considered an indignity).

The poet ends the poem with the note that the life of the grandpa and the decision made was terrifying and puts in prayer that those situations should not repeat. “No uneasy stir of cloud Darkened the white skies of your day; the silence Of dust grazed in the long after in sun, ruling The cracked fallow earth, ate into the laughter of your flesh.” Here the poet wants to say that at the time of scarcity and famine, the sky was clear and there was no hope for rainfall. There was silence all around after a long run of the scorching heat of the sun. The earth seemed to be cracked like a piece of dry cake. This hunger-stricken famine has swallowed the happiness in the lives of people. “For you it was the hardest question of all. Dead, empty tress stood by the dragging river, Past your weakened body, flailing against your sleep. You thought of the way the jackals moved, to move.” Grandfather was suffering from the greatest dilemma of whether to convert to Christianity or not. Here, a comparison is made between trees and humans. The dead, empty trees lying beside the dry river is compared to the weakened hunger-stricken malnourished body of the humans. Another comparison is that the sound made by the hungry stomach was similar to the sound made during the call of the jackals. “Did you hear the young tamarind leaves rustle In the cold mean nights of your belly? Did you see Your own death? Watch it tear at your cries, Break them into fits of unnatural laughter?” Here the poet asks the protagonist, i.e., the grandfather a sequence of rhetorical questions that whether they could hear the similar sound of the rustle of dry tamarind leaves in their belly; whether they saw their death. This condition of crisis is gradually affecting their mental stability. It is converting their hunger into a burst of hard natural laughter. “How old were you? Hunted, you turned coward and ran, The real animal in you plunging through your bone. You left your family behind, the buried things, The precious clod that praised the quality of a god.” Poet raises questions as to how could he give it all up and go ahead with his life even after having so much responsibility that came along with his age. Hunger was the real animal that was so chronic that it seeped in his bones too, which compelled him to leave everything behind, his family, his religion just so that he could manage to get himself to satisfy this Hunger.

“The imperishable that swung your broken body, Turned it inside out? What did faith matter? What Hindu world so ancient and true for you to hold? Uneasily you dreamed toward the center of your web.” Now the poet tries to understand the situation of his grandfather of what all he must be going through. This was a consequence of Hunger but he is not at peace in his mind and he could not reconcile his choices. “The separate life let you survive, while perhaps The one you left wept in the blur of your heart. Now in a night of sleep and taunting rain My son and I speak of that famine nameless as snow.” The poet talks about the whole new life after the grandfather converted to Christianity where he left everything behind. The memories from his past life brought tears into his eyes because although he managed to survive he was abandoned as he had no one for him now. One night the poet was talking to his son about this and how deeply it affected their lives. The contrary is that they had the idea of the famine only through the pages of grandfather’s diary but it was not relatable to them. “A conscience of years is between us. He is young. The whirls of glory are breaking down for him before me. Does he think of the past as a loss we have lived, our own? Out of the silence, we look back now at what we do not know.” Poet tells his son how he had inherited the troubles and sense of loss, from his past and how he doesn't realize what the entire poet and his family went through. While the grandfather went ahead transiting his religion and leaving everyone behind, the son only looks at the glorious future without acknowledging the facts and wonders only if he would ever understand the hardships because there exists a generation gap. Their conditions also improved with the time passing by and his son never had to bother about the past. “There is a dawn waiting beside us, whose signs Are a hundred odd years away from you, Grandfather You are an invisible piece on a board Whose move has made our children grow, to know us,” Dawn here represents the beginning of a new life that began around a century back which is a turning point. He goes about telling that now after all this while they don't even consider him as a part of their own family, but he also appreciates as this helped them grow stronger and stand on their own feet which is why they are giving their children a life that they couldn't get while growing up. “Carrying us deep where our voices lapse into silence. We wish we knew you more. We wish we knew what it was to be, against dying, To know the dignity”

Even after all this while and the event which had caused the life to turn upside down there is still an ache from the past in their lives and they still are trying to understand from the diary he left behind. They were trying to figure out the reasons behind this huge step. On one hand, the poet wishes to know him more but on the contrary, the poet considered it to be unjust as he gave all up to be able to survive which did cost him his dignity. “That had to be earned dangerously, Your last chance that was blindly terrifying, so unfair. We wish we had not to wake up with our smiles In the middle of some social order.” He goes ahead and tells about the great difficulties the grandfather was facing before converting and how he was helpless as he could not fight against nature. So he was compelled to take up this step, fight against society so he could fill his belly and survive for longer. He could not change his destiny and had to go through all the troubles so to fight against Hunger.

Concluding, Jayanta Mahapatra’s poem “Grandfather” like autobiographical poetry. It deals through the diary of the poet’s grandfather the concept of conversion of religion as experienced by his grandfather himself. The hunger for him enforced him to take up Christianity as his religion. The poetry denotes the pain of a man who had but no other choice to change his religion just for the sake of having food to survive. It shows the cruelty of manmade distortion of religion that determines the food giving in terms of one’s religion. He questioned in this poem the necessities of religion.

JOURNEY By Temsula Ao Temsula Ao is a poet, short story writer, and ethnographer. She is a retired Professor of English at North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU). Temsula Ao was born in October 1945 at Jorhat, Assam. She matriculated from Ridgeway Girls' High School, Golaghat, Assam. The story ‘The Journey’ revolves around the central character, a young girl named Tinula. Set in Assam, the story talks about the hardships the young girl faces in her journey to her home and back to her boarding school. The themes in the story are Human Suffering, Existential Dilemma, Human Life and Psychology, The loss of innocence and transition to maturity, Stark Development and underdevelopment in the North-East, The bond between siblings. 

Character Sketch of Tinula,

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A 13-year-old girl studying in a boarding school in Assam.

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Naïve about the true face of human nature: She has not witnessed much cruelty in her life and hence she assumes the best of People

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Highly sensitive and yet capable of surviving hardships: Although she broke down a few times during the journey, she got back up and completed it. She has also survived the death of her parents.

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Irrational at times: Attempts to walk in shoes that are too big for her while they are traversing through harsh terrains.

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Nature sensitive: Always aware of birds singing, piglets squealing, and the geography of her home village in the Naga Hills.

The story ‘ The Journey’ revolves around the central character, a young girl named Tinula. Set in Assam, the story talks about the hardships the young girl faces in her journey to her home and back to her boarding school. The journey which Tinula has to embark on in-order to reach back to her boarding school from her village in the Naga hills is a tedious, risky one-day journey mostly on foot. She sets out with her brother in the morning along with a group of people. They carry along with provisions with them to cook food and eat during the journey. Tinula talks about how they have to cross many rivers and even walk through forests during the course of the journey. Being the youngest along the lot she faces a lot of difficulties while crossing streams and rivers. The water level came up to her eyebrows and her brother and another man had to carry her to the other bank. While crossing through the forest, Tinula starts crying but her brother Temjenba talks to her and soothes her. During the course of the story, Tinula is seen struggling with various aspects of the journey. Such as she is seen struggling to cross the paths with her shoes which are too large for her feet, fear of running into animals while crossing through forests, and so on. Moreover, the major factor of keeping up with the elders and the group is also tiring for a young girl such as Tinula. After crossing through rivers and forests, Tinula and her brother are seen boarding a train. The train was a crowded one and she barely manages to sit on one of the wooden planks and travel. They get down finally after a very uncomfortable train ride at a station called Farkating at almost midnight. With no means to go to the hostel, they start

worrying but their luck favors them and a man offers them a ride in his car. Although they had to squeeze in with all the others both Tinula and her brother were dropped off at her boarding school gates. On reaching the boarding school they go and meet the Superintendent Lady, afterward we see that Tinula is delivered with the news from her friend Winnie that Hubert, the boy whom Tinula had developed an affection for had found a new girlfriend. She develops a new sort of disappointment in the way the news was delivered from Winnie whom she considered as a good friend. On hearing this news a strange emotion takes over her, she remembers this day as the one which caused a thirteen-year-old to have a retake on her life and embrace a new kind of journey.

THE END Vaibhav Singhvi 2022047...