The Implicit Treatment of the Supernatural and of the Superstition Mode in Manoj Das’s Select Short Stories
Dr. D. Gnanasekaran
Former Professor & Head, Dept. Of English,
Kanchi Mamunivar Centre for PG Studies & Research, Puducherry. dgsekar52@gmail.com [Abstract: This article deals with three short stories (selected from three anthologies) of Manoj Das, an internationally renowned writer, highlighting his subtle treatment of the supernatural element, and some of the superstitions steeped into the Indian psyche. The supernatural is woven into the narrative so artistically that the borderline between the real and the unreal blurs and the readers are inveigled into suspending their disbelief and sharing the space with the beings in the other
…show more content…
He projects the supernatural beliefs with his use of humour, satire, social criticism, nostalgia and irony. In this story, Manoj Das has admirably balanced the natural and the supernatural. Mr. Batstone, a sociologist from the West who is fond of travelling, comes to the narrator’s village. The purpose of his visit is to experience the typical Indian village life. Of all his experiences, “his most wonderful experience had been an interview with the head pundit of the ‘Model’ Lower Primary School of our village, Shri. Maku Mishra, who, Dr. Batstone discovered, had taught for forty years without having heard of Hegel, Marx or Freud or Einstein or even Bernard Shaw” (CL …show more content…
Maku Mishra matches the typical Indian teacher in a village. He is not updated in his knowledge. Dr. Batstone’s conversation with the villagers clearly brings out the superstitious belief of the people about ghosts. The story of Mahatma Languly shows Manoj Das’s brilliant use of narration to make the seemingly incredible fairly credible. Dr. Batstone listens to the narrations of the villagers and so he serves as a link among the three stories within the single short story: “Story of the Cousin”, “Story of Mahatma Languly Baba” and “Story of the Crocodile’s Lady”. All the three sstories border on the element of improbability but, however, the masterly handling of each story by the author renders the incidents most credible. Languly Baba is said to be 300 years old. The birth of Languly Baba in the burial ground, his howling for one full day and the way he was guarded from jackals and foxes are shrouded in mystery. The current generation is doubtful about the exact location of his birth and they are forced to believe the stories in circulation. So his birthplace is a matter of faith and none of his generation has survived today to give an authentic account of his
In the short story “Interpreter of Maladies” the narrator is inside Mr. Kapasi’s head, so we see the story from his point of view; moreover he is one of the protagonists in this short story. However, in this story we can see another protagonist – this is Mrs. Das. Mr. Kapasi observes the Das family, their habits and manners, their relationships within their family and comes to some conclusions about Mrs. Das after their tet-a-tet conversation. In this conversation, Mrs. Das has partially opened up her soul for Mr. Kapasi; however, Mr. Kapasi will not help Mrs. Das because his sympathy for her diminishes when he hears her confession about her son Bobby. Even though Mr. Kapasi does not truly understand Mrs. Das, this trip through India is
Culture builds up and shapes how people view the world and the people in it. It determines how we judge and view the way others act, look, and even how they think. In the texts “Where worlds collide”, “An Indian Father’s Plea”, and “Two Kinds”, it is shown that a person’s views of others and the world are solely determined by their culture.
Do you like the ending of the book? Why or why not? Do you think there is more to tell? What do you think might happen next? Give details with page numbers from the book to explain.
“They wept together, for the things they now knew.”(104) The last sentence of the first story in Interpreter of Maladies, reveals the cruelty of the elapsed romance in a marriage. In the two collections, A Temporary Matter and The Third and Final Continent, Jhumpa Lahiri demonstrates that a marriage can be either uplifting or discouraging depends on the mindset held by the couple and the strength of human bonding. Lahiri emphasizes the significance of mindset and human bondings through the ending of the two stories. The endings of the two stories are polar opposite : In A Temporary Matter, Shukumar and Shobha weeps for the termination of their relationship; The Third and Final Continent, by contrast, the protagonist(MIT) enjoys a fairytale-like
In “Hell-Heaven”, the actions of Pranab Chakraborty, a Bengali family friend of the narrator, shapes those around him, including the narrator’s family; as the story progresses, his influence on those around him becomes more profound. The two characters that are affected by Pranab in
This paper attempts to examine the fictional projections of Indian girls, to see how they emerge in ideological terms. Their journeys from self-alienation to self-adjustment, their childhood struggles against the hypocrisies and monstrosities of the grown-up world, eventually demolishing the unjust male constructed citadels of power that hinder their progress- are the highlighted issues. The point of comparison between the two novels focused on here is the journey of Rahel in The God of Small Things and Sai in The Inheritance from a lonely childhood to a tragic adulthood passing through a struggle with the complex forces of patriarchal society. Both the novels portray the imaginativeness, inventiveness, independence, rebelliousness, wide-eyed wonder and innocence associated with these young girls.
Although Balram and John have different nicknames, their backgrounds are an influence. Balram Halwai, a man from the ‘darkness’ or the lowest caste in India, strives for success and to leave the ‘darkness.’ When an inspector visits his school, the
The plot in the short story “Hindus” demonstrates how a certain sequence of events can help people better understand themselves. Leela meets many different and unique people on her journey throughout
Overall this book is a great for students of all ages. The book has a strong message that can be interpreted in multiple ways from each person. The main message of the story is how darkness turns into light. The story is about Arun Gandhi, the grandson of the inspirational Mahatma Gandhi who begins a journey into assimilating his cultural roots. The story begins with Arun travels with the rest of his family to Sevagram where his grandfather resides. At first, Arun had difficulty assimilating to this new environment. For example, in the city of Sevagram there was no electricity and language was a major barrier for Arun. In Sevagram they spoke Gujarati which Arun barely new how to speak thus leading his peers to tease him. As a result oftentimes Arun would become frustrated and
When I was seven years old, I emigrated from India to the United States. Coming to the states, I experienced a culture shock due to the different types of people, customs, and education system. The first time I stepped in the states, I saw people from all different nationalities, races, and ethnicities; a whole different type of world that was inconceivable when I lived in India. An eventful part of my life was transitioning from the school system in India to the school system in America. The expectation of a student and child in the United States was vastly different to the expectations placed by society in India. Sociological imagination and sociological mindfulness enabled me to understand how
In fact, by attempting to glamourize suffering by portraying it superficially, writers may lose the connection with us that appreciates literature. Instead, what we are left with is an over extended attempt to glorify suffering, or hide it within a guise of reality that is too savage to be true. Instead of the appreciative feeling that reality imbues within me as a reader, I am left with a sense of disgust, confusion and dissatisfaction. This feeling almost overwhelmed me while reading Adiga’s “The White Tiger” and it tainted my experience with the book. Adiga had written the novel without any firsthand experience in the rural areas of India to which his main character referred to as the darkness. Instead, being of a higher class, his accounts were based on second or third hand experiences which do not adequately depict the lower class’ realities. I found the following depiction of India’s ghettos both farcically unrealistic and eventually
This essay focuses on the theme of forbidden love, The God of Small Things written by Arundhati Roy. This novel explores love and how love can’t be ignored when confronted with social boundaries. The novel examines how conventional society seeks to destroy true love as this novel is constantly connected to loss, death and sadness. This essay will explore the theme of forbidden love, by discussing and analysing Ammu and Velutha's love that is forbidden because of the ‘Love Laws’ in relation to the caste system which results in Velutha’s death. It is evident that forbidden love negatively impacts and influences other characters, such as Estha and Rahel, which results in Estha and Rahel’s incestuous encounter.
Arundhati Roy’s novel The God of Small Things presents the reader with the realities of Marxism. Roy gives the reader an impression of three possible manifestations of the ideology, rather than presenting a biased reading for or against Marxism. Through Roy’s novel the reader comes to understand Marxism as it appears through Velutha, the oppressed worker, Chacko the Marxist-in-name only, and Comrade Pillai, the corrupt politician.
In conclusion The irony shown in this book about corruption, oppression of the poor, reality of India vs. the images foreigners have of India help portray our understanding of this novel. The corruption shown in the book is the teacher stealing the student’s money and the school inspector getting a question that he asked wrong. The reality of India vs. the images foreigners have of India is shown in the book there was framing involved and no doctors in government hospitals. last but not least is the oppression of the poor is
Just a couple week or before, I was hovering around the streets of Kathmandu and was gyrating around a top of my house with a heavy brain box. Every of those 24 hours of my days used to be spent on finding the meaning of life, death and the reason I am here on this planet. After those rigorous searches inside the book ‘Nirwad, ‘The Alchemist’, and inside my own heart, I finally got the answer.