Obituary by A.K. Ramanujan PDF

Title Obituary by A.K. Ramanujan
Course Indian Poetics and Aesthetics
Institution Jawaharlal Nehru University
Pages 12
File Size 103.9 KB
File Type PDF
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Obituary by A.K. Ramanujan...


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"OBITUARY" by A.K. RAMANUJAN You can clearly see the son in this unit, who does not show any strong feelings for his father's death, which may be due to Hindu tradition or his annoyance with his father.. Everything has shifted dramatically as of late. As a result of her husband's death, the mother's grief is understandable. Despite his disdain for his father, the narrator politely asks the newspaper to publish his father's obituary in its pages. WHAT IS THE POEM ABOUT? The Hon. A.K. RAMANUJAN Krishnaswami Krishnaswami Krishnaswami In the name of God, Krishnaswami. Indian poet and scholar of Indian literature Krishna Ramanujan, better known by his pen name A. K. Ramanujan, published works in both English and Kannada. On July 13, 1993, he passed away. In addition to being a poet, scholar, and professor, Ramanujan was a philologist, folklorist, translator, and playwright. His academic work incorporated the use of multiple languages, including English, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Sanskrit. This was a subject he covered extensively, and he strongly advocated for the recognition of nonstandard dialects. Although he wrote extensively and in a variety of genres, Ramanujan's poetry is remembered for its enigmatic works of startling originality, sophistication, and moving artistry. This award was given to him posthumously in 1999 for his book of poems, The Selected Poems. Ramanujan was born in Mysore City on March 16, 1929. An astronomer and mathematician at Mysore University, Professor Attipat Asuri Krishnaswami had a particular fondness for English, Kannada, and Sanskrit. His mother did not work outside the home. Ramanujan's brother, A.K. Srinivasan, was a writer and mathematician as well. Education He attended Marimallappa's High School in Mysore and the Maharaja College in Mysore as a high school student and received his college education there. When Ramanujan first entered college, his father convinced him to change his major from science to English because he wasn't "mathematically oriented." A Fulbright Scholar at Indiana University

from 1959 to 1962, Ramanujan served as a Fellow at Deccan College in Pune from 1958 to 1959. He received his BA in English from the University of Mysore and his MA and PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. Career Prior to teaching at the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda, Ramanujan taught English in Quilon and Belgaum. In 1962, he was promoted to the position of assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Throughout his career, he taught in a variety of departments at the university. Aside from those institutions in the United States, he has also held professorships at Harvard, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Carleton College of Canada The University of Chicago's South Asian Studies programme owes a lot to Ramanujan. Committee on Social Thought, as well as the departments of South Asian Language and Civilization, Linguistics, and Linguistics, all included him. One of India's best-known authors in English, A.K.Ramanujan, is also an accomplished Indian author. He wrote all of his poetry in the United States, but he was deeply influenced by India and Indian culture. His musings on the American way of life appear to have no bearing on his poetry. Kannada was the language of choice for some of his earlier works, such as "Vachans" from [[Kannada]]. Padma Shri, India's highest civilian honour, was presented to him in 1976; the MacArthur Foundation's Fellowship Award, in 1983. (Shulman, 1994). After receiving an award from the MacArthur Foundation in 1983, he was named William E. Colvin Professor at the University of Chicago in the departments of South Asian Languages and Civilizations; Linguistics; and the Committee on Social Thought. As an Indo-American author, Ramanujan experienced both a native and a nonnative context. Poems like "Conventions of Despair," in which he compares and contrasts the cultures of the East and the West, reflect his worldview. The Sahitya Akademi Award for Collected Poems was given to him in 1999.

As a result of an adverse reaction to anaesthesia during surgery preparation, A. K. Ramanujan died in Chicago on July 13, 1993. Research contributions related to the Indian subcontinent A. K. Ramanujan contributed to a wide range of fields with his theoretical and aesthetic contributions. The "Is There an Indian Way of Thinking?" thinker uses the term "contextsensitive" to describe cultural ideologies and their behavioural manifestations (1990). The intertextuality of India's oral and written literary traditions is emphasised in Ramanujan's folklore studies work. Reflections: An Anthology of Reflections" (1989), "The Interior Landscape: Love Poems from a Classical Tamil Anthology" (1967), and Folktales from India (1967). Oral Tales from Twenty Indian Languages is an example of his work in Indian folklore studies (1991).

There has been some debate about his essay. A debate erupted in 2006 when the University of Delhi's B.A. in History syllabus included his 1991 essay "Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation." A number of other Ramayana versions, including those by Valmiki and Tulsidas, do not depict Rama and Sita as siblings, as he argues in this essay. As a result, some Hindus took A K Ramanujam's comments to court to have Delhi University remove the text from its curriculum. While the majority of Hindus revered Rama and Sita as gods and husband and wife, the anti-nationalist ABVP student organisation argued that including them in the curriculum would offend Hindu sensibilities. They demanded that the essay be removed from the school's academic programme. Court orders Delhi University to form a committee to decide whether or not to include the essay. This was followed by 3-1 approval by a committee of four members to include it in the curriculum.

Instead of implementing the committee's recommendations, the academic council opted to eliminate the essay from the curriculum in October 2011. Academics and scholars took to the streets, accusing Delhi University of bowing to nonhistorians' wishes ("views"). Poem written in English by Indian poets has a number of inherent flaws. Only a few of the accepted poets have been able to overcome the difficulties posed by its essentially hybrid nature. Both the language and the sensibility it conveys are questioned for their authenticity. He frequently employs gimmickry devices to deal with these challenges, and he does so frequently when writing in English. It's sometimes necessary for him to use syntax and lexis in order to convey an impression of originality and cleverness. A "Indianism" or idiom from the Indian language is a phrase or a complex image that he uses to shock the reader. Some of the Indian poets' use of the English idiom is self-aware, which diminishes its usefulness. Some of these poets seem to keep a supply of 'outlandish' words and expressions on hand, which they employ to give their work an air of profundity it doesn't deserve. Some of them have their own "private" mythologies that they turn to for comfort. One has the uneasy impression that the underlying idea must be glossed over as well as the diction. The lack of emotional depth is attempted to be compensated for by adopting a phoney ironic mode and elitist arrogance due to the abundance of intellect. The bi-lingual poet is usually the one who shines in these kinds of situations. Indo-Anglian poets write in both English and their mother tongue, which appears to be the mark of a true poet. They are poets in their own right, capable of expressing themselves in both their native language and English. In other words, they aren't trying to make money off of their poetry through clever wordplay and literary ingenuity. There are only a handful of authentic Indian poets who are currently writing in English, and A.K. Ramanujan is one of them. In addition, he is a bilingual, if not trilingual, author. Although he has lived abroad for a long time, he has not succumbed to a sense of alienation because he refuses to deny his Indian ancestry. Because he has

largely avoided the pitfalls listed above, his tone and treatment come across as utterly authentic. Mysore, India, is where A.K. Ramanujan was born in 1929. Trilingual author who can write in English, Tamil, and Kannada at the same time Tamil and Kannada translations of his creative works are also written by him. One is titled The Striders (1966), and the other is titled Relations : Poems (1977). (1971). To begin with, the former shows Ramanujan to be an artist who can create beautiful images with precise word choice and phrasing. To put it another way, his style is brash and his sensibility is decidedly of the present. His urban upbringing shows in his poetry, which has a distinct sophistication. Professor of Linguistics Ramanujan is meticulous in his choice of words and expressions. He's mastered an oblique, elliptical writing style. As a result, he has been able to expand the English language's vocabulary and add a distinct pungency to it. It is necessary to look at two of Ramanujan's best poems in order to get a sense of the poet in action. Ramanujan's other poems are not deserving of attention because they were not selected; rather, the selection indicates that the poems chosen are unquestionably his best work.

Obituary By A K Ramanujan Father, when he passed on, left dust on a table of papers, left debts and daughters, a bedwetting grandson named by the toss of a coin after him, a house that leaned slowly through our growing

years on a bent coconut tree in the yard. Being the burning type, he burned properly at the cremation as before, easily and at both ends, left his eye coins in the ashes that didn't look one bit different, several spinal discs, rough, some burned to coal, for sons

to pick gingerly and throw as the priest said, facing east where three rivers met near the railway station; no longstanding headstone with his full name and two dates

to holdin their parentheses everything he didn't quite manage to do himself, like his caesarian birth in a brahmin ghetto and his death by heartfailure in the fruit market.

But someone told me he got two lines in an inside column of a Madras newspaper sold by the kilo exactly four weeks later to streethawkers

who sell it in turn to the small groceries where I buy salt, coriander, and jaggery in newspaper cones that I usually read

for fun, and lately in the hope of finding these obituary lines. And he left us a changed mother and more than one annual ritual.

INTERPRETATION OF THE POEM

It is a poignant reminder of the importance and value of family life in A.K. Ramanujan's poem "Obituary." His father left behind a table piled high with dusty newspapers, debts, and daughters in the first few lines. The narrator laments the fact that their father left them with only hardships and difficulties to deal with. There is nothing new in the newspapers, and his own father has contributed nothing in terms of creativity or productivity to the industry. In India, daughters are second only to debt as a source of stress. A dowry befitting their social standing is given to their children by their parents. In a conversational tone reminiscent of Philip Larkin, he discusses the grandfather, whose father had an inexcusable habit of urinating in bed. This serves as a poignant reminder of how the poet's father left nothing but a jumble of memories in his wake. "By chance," he says, the grandson was given the surname of his father, but this has the exact opposite connotation.

The legacy includes a dilapidated house. According to the poet, the dilapidated house leaned on the coconut tree for their entire childhood. That their quality of life has worsened can be seen in the analogy of the house If the family was forced to live a life of dependency, it could also mean that they were forced to rely on others (the way the house leans on the coconut tree). According to the poet, his "burning type" father was properly cremated. To describe the father's physical appearance, "dry and parched" could be interpreted. His witty demeanour could also be a factor. It appears that this person was a heavy smoker based on the following lines:

he burned properly at the cremation as before, easily and at both ends,

With his eyes shining brightly, they appeared to be the same as they had always been. Meaning that they had no feelings at all while he was still alive. They have a coin-like glint in their eyes. Once again, a person's eyeballs reflect what he is seeing. It's possible that the speaker was trying to imply that his father's primary concern was money. He also left some partially burned spinal discs, which the priest instructed the children to pick up 'gingerly,' or with care, and immerse in the Thriveni, where Hindu rites call for the dead to be immersed. Neither a prominent nor a minor tombstone bearing the deceased's birth and death dates was erected in honour of the deceased. Therefor his birth or death were unremarkable events. Caesarean section was all that was required to bring him into the world, and that's saying something. At the fruit market, he died of heart failure, a quick and painless end. Only two lines of an obituary appeared in a Madras newspaper at the end of his life. It was hawked by the poet to a grocer, who bought supplies from him from time to time. This only serves to highlight the father's utter insignificance. It is claimed by the poet that he used to read newspapers wrapped in groceries, such as salt and jaggery, before. In the meantime, he's doing it in the vain hope that one day he'll stumble across the lines from his father's obituary. As a result, the poet sets out on a quest to discover the significance of his father's presence in his life.

Being the burning type, he burned properly at the cremation… During the cremation of the father's body, coins were placed on the eyes of the deceased's body In accordance with Hindu tradition, cremation takes place within 24 hours of death. After the cremation, the sons dug through the ashes to find hot coals that they could throw into the river to the east. There would be no memorial to the father's life and death on his grave. Using parentheses, the son's father's life is represented by the dates. There are many things the son believes his father did wrong or incompletely from the moment he was born until his death:

like his caesarean birth in a Brahmin ghetto and his death by heart failure in the fruit market…

Four weeks after his father's cremation, he discovers that an obituary for him took up two lines in a local newspaper. The son bought a lot of sugar cane, and he'd put it in a newspaper with a cone shape. When asked why he looks for the paper, the son initially says it's just for fun, but then says he'd like to read the obituary. There are certain rituals that need to be performed by the oldest son, and the narrator is in charge of them. People are rarely moved to tears when a Hindu dies because they believe that once a person is born, they are eternal. Most of the time, there isn't a lot of crying. This could be because of Hindu tradition or because of the son's dislike for his own father. Everything has shifted dramatically as of late. As a result of her husband's death, the mother's grief is understandable. Despite his disdain for his father, the narrator politely asks the newspaper to publish his father's obituary in its pages.

Our little Sammy's gone, His tiny spirit's fled; Our little boy we loved so dear Lies sleeping with the dead. a father's eyes well up with tears of sorrow. The pain of a mother's heart The agony can only be described in words. How painful it is to part ways. In India, daughters are second only to debts as a source of financial stress. A dowry befitting their social standing is given to their children by their parents. In a conversational tone reminiscent of Philip Larkin, he discusses the grandfather, whose father had an inexcusable habit of urinating in bed. This serves as a poignant reminder of how the poet's father left nothing but a jumble of memories in his wake. It was "by chance," he says, that the grandson was named after his father, which means "by chance."

The legacy includes a dilapidated house. According to the poet, the dilapidated house leaned on the coconut tree for their entire childhood. That their quality of life has worsened can be seen in the analogy of the house If the family was forced to live a life of dependency, it could also mean that they were forced to rely on others (the way the house leans on the coconut tree). According to the poet, his "burning type" father was properly cremated. To describe the father's physical appearance, "dry and parched" could be interpreted. His witty demeanour could also be a factor. It appears that this person was a heavy smoker based on the following lines:

he burned properly at the cremation as before, easily and at both ends, Ere sin has seared the breast, Or sadness roused the tear, Rise to thy throne of changeless rest, In yon celestial sphere!

Family units are the foundation of a society. In order for a society to be stable, its blocks must be strong. The strongest pillars of society are the nuclear family and the nuclear family unit. When it comes to society, family is absolutely essential, and a woman, whether she's a sibling or wife or mother, plays an important role. The family is by far the most significant social organising unit there is. One of the most important units in any society has always been and will always be the family, which consists primarily of one man and one woman living harmoniously together. In terms of sexual, emotional, intellectual, and social balance, this relationship is the only one that can do it. For the sake of society's advancement, the family's job is to serve as a positive role model. The Father is the family's most adored and revered member. Fatherhood is truly a calling that sets the stage for families and society in general. An important theme in A.K. Ramanujan's poetry is family. Poetry is a way for him to relive his past memories. The quality of his poetry is outstanding, and it is realistic and

relevant to contemporary society. Lyrical sensibility, childhood memories, ideology, patients, reverent proficiency and a wide range of human conditions are all part of his lyrical sensitivity style. In the poem "Obituary," Ramanujan's father is depicted in an ironic light....


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