Study of Frames in Charles Chaplin's "Modern Times" and "The Great Dictator"

 Hello Readers!

In the online class on 7 April, as Dilip Barad sir gave a task to watch both these films and study frames of the films. On  The Modern Times & The Great Dictator.

Charlie Chaplin  :-(April 16, 1889 ­ December 25, 1977)

Charlie Chaplin, who brought laughter to millions worldwide as the silent "Little Tramp" clown, had the type of deprived childhood that one would expect to find in a Dickens novel. Born in East Street, Walworth, London on 16 April, 1889,  Charles Spencer Chaplin was the son of a music hall singer and his wife. Charlie Chaplin's parents divorced early in his life, with his father providing little to no support, either financial or otherwise, leaving his mother to support them as best she could. Chaplin's mother Hannah was the brightest spot in Charlie's childhood; formerly an actor on stage, she had lost her ability to perform, and managed to earn a subsistence living for herself, Charlie, and Charlie's older half ­brother Sidney by sewing. She was an integral part of Charlie's young life, and he credited her with much of his success. Sadly, she slowly succumbed to mental illness, and by the time that Charlie was 7 years old, she was confined to an asylum; Charlie and Sidney were relegated to a workhouse­­ not for the last time. After 2 months, she was released, and the family was happily reunited, for a time. In later years, she was readmitted for an 8­month stretch later, during which time  Charlie lived with his alcoholic father and stepmother, in a strained environment .

Frames from "Modern Times" :-

In Modern Times , Charlie Chaplin plays a factory worker at the Electro Steel Company, tightening nuts on a fast-moving conveyor belt. One scene shows a mechanical contraption designed to feed workers lunch while they remain on the assembly line, but it malfunctions, throwing soup in Charlie’s face. Other scenes depict a capitalist owner who maintains closed-circuit surveillance over the plant and demands increases in the speed of the line. Unable to keep pace, Charlie falls into the giant gears. He has a nervous breakdown, and loses his job. On the street, he’s mistaken for a communist leader and arrested. He accidentally prevents a jailbreak, is pardoned and released, but with his old steel plant idle, Charlie cannot find employment, and begins to long for the shabby security of incarceration. The political message of “Modern Times” would seem unmistakable.

 This frame talk's about Time Management. You Gain a Sense of Fulfillment. Once your time management efforts start to pay off in the form of accomplishments. You Relieve Stress. Managing your time can have a direct impact on your stress level . It Improves Self-Discipline. If you are good at managing your time, you’re probably also very self-disciplined. but as we are not able to make a time for our-self in this  modern world . we can see that people is wasting there time in doing instead of being a happy .

This both image talk about the Reality of people who is working . We can say that director has try to show  picture of city that how  people are walking like a sheep on the SUBWAY with there food. we can also say that now human are becoming robot by only giving a most of time to work and reason of that they are not able to enjoy life and we have also watch in this movie that chaplin used to fix bolt when he is fir from the job , so we can say that job was hire from him but then also in  his mind job was  still  alive.
 

we get to know that honor of the factory  is playing gaming in his office and worker's are doing hardwork   by that we get and idea that how upper class people use middle class people and pay then less amount and most of the profit they only get.

This  image shows that how on the one slide  factory honor is reading a newspaper and on the second hand people are working as a machine in the factory and we can also get idea that he has an assistant who give her medicine at fix time.  at the one side if worker has to go out of the work then also he need some one who take a place of him then only he might go. because machine did not understand human emotion.

 while watching this 3 image in our mind comes "Big Boss" ( upaar vala sab dekhta ha !!) in first image we can see that there is a boss who has having a coat and he is looking at all his worker throw his chair and giving a advice to worker. on the second had we can see that there is one young man who has not wear proper cloths and when his boss call him he come quicky but putting all his work aslide nd in the last image we get to know that how when charles is in the washroom and when boss give a order "get back to work " then he started working. so, we can say that boss is watching him throw cctv and he want that all worker do work  as robot .

when security guard is whistling  that time all the criminal  start working in one direction, in the first whistle the all open there cell and stand  in one row on second  whistle they start going to eat there food , on third whistle they start eating food and on fourth whistle  they go towords there cell and at the finale whistle they all go inside the cell. all the thing is going in whistle.

In the first picture we can see that it is an imagination of there home and house and all the things are in proper position and when he wanted to eat fruit  then he is easily plucking  out and eating grasp and when he need milk then cow come near his home and he take out milk so, we can say that this image is of ambition that people are free to imagine and people always think of being rich person in the second image we can see that his real life is totally different where house is maid up of wood and when Chaplin put his hand on any thing then then it started falling and when Chaplin sit for break fast  that time chair brock and it's show the reality of life that how middle class people has to struggle for "A cup of tea ".

On the one image we can see that in imagine house where here he think of being rich person with that he is following  a habit of upper class people and having his food with spoon and on the second side we can see that how Charlie comes in real world where the middle class people has to eat food with there hands. so, both the image show's the upper class & middle class life style of eating food .

when Chaplin is not able to  remember  the song's word then his friend tell him that he will write on his cuff but while dancing when the paper is lost then he is not able to speak a single word then his  friend tell him to speak a word then started speaking a thing by his skill and all enjoyed it so, instead of doing copy we should do hardwork . we can compare with student that how when his or her copy part is missed then he or she is not able to write and on the second side some student do hard work 24 hours 7 days then also not able to get good score , but some student who read during exam and achive  grand score by trick .

Charlie Chaplin attacks Hitler in The Great Dictator :-

The Great Dictator was Charlie Chaplin's first truly talking picture, and when it was finally released in 1940, it was a worldwide sensation. Many people mistakenly think that the character of the Jewish Barber in the film is the Tramp, but Charlie Chaplin was adamant that they are different characters. Although the barber uses many of the Tramp's mannerisms, he is also clearly an individual in his own right. And the barber is far more long­winded, as the famous "Look Up, Hannah" speech at the end of the movie reminds us.

In order to gain acceptance, politicians tend to touch the soft corners of public which is children. as we know that children mind are pure they does not know the politics so, if someone speak nice to theme then they can easily started believing theme so,  Such political stunts are still relevant in today's time. Politicians knows the mass psychology and also know how to win people's heart. In order to collect  majority vote they follow such practices. they provide tablet to collage student because they know they are fresher and now, they are able to give vote .

Dictators are majorly in self-love. they spend just only think  of himself They give orders to prepare statues and portraits of themselves so that their identity remains recorded in the history. People come under the influence of the gigantic lifestyle of power people and start making temples of them instead of questioning them. we can connect with the political leaders that  how they keep on wasting money in making idol . they are increasing  tax on m necessity thing and using that money  for making rich people comfortable and not thinking about poor people who is not getting one time food.

The barber shop is also considered as the discussion corner of various political events.  whenever we go to Barbers shop we  forgot everything and we fell relax in Barbers shop and often Barbers used to ask or try to make conversation with us about society and politics leader. It throw the light of reality .

The dream sequence begins after Garbage's dialogue. Hynkel's hunger for power is highlighted in this frame. He plays with the balloon  we see that here balloon is taken as the world map. that how politic gets a right to dictat upon the world if he wish then he can make a  modern world and if he want to destroy a world then also he can . so, we can know by this image that who has a power they can dictator upon  the world.

the double role of charlie chaplin makes significant mark in the film. people think that hynkel is making a speech but it is barber who is giving a remarkable note on liberty and equality. all have equal rights to live peaceful life and earn good wage.

so, while  watching both movies we can  say that Charlie Chaplin has try to show the reality of society that how middle class people has to suffer a lot in world and how upper class people is ruling with them .

Indian Poetics

 Indian Poetics :-

Literary criticism in India has its genesis in the encyclopaedic Nātyaśāstra of Bharata around 2nd c. AD and later alamkāra school of thought after late 6th c. AD. It is common knowledge that Sanskrit literary criticism has its conceptual moorings in 
grammar and Indian darśanas.1 Poetics in ancient India involved philosophical speculation and theoretical formulation which are crucial for a robust system building. Consequently, there are some questions that Indian poetics addresses.

a) What constitutes kavya?
b) What is the most important element for the literariness of kavya?
c) How is literary meaning produced/ arrived at? 
d) What is the end of literary representation?
e) What is the nature of literary meaning?
f) What is the nature of aesthetic experience?
g) Where is the locus of aesthetic experience art, artist, or beholder?
h) What are the criteria for classification of literary and non-literary texts?

As a result of obtaining concerns such as above, theoretical departures developed into various thought systems. This proclivity to theorization often led modern scholars to consider, and at times doubt, relevance and applicability of Indian literary theories. Amidst the clouds of misgivings in modern criticism, it should be duly clarified that Indian literary theories inhere in enough scope for practical criticism. However, it should be noted that the investigative exegetical models derived from Indian literary theories tend to be constitutive in nature without being polemical.

Critical analysis of literature is an interpretive activity that makes sense out of what is otherwise abstruse so is usually understood. In Sanskrit intellectual tradition, on the other hand, this point of view has been carefully developed in relation especially to knowledge literature. For in vangamaya  that is comprised of both sastra and kavya, there is a well-established system of interpretation or sastra-paddhati that has evolved in the light of Vedic, sastraic and philosophical literature. 

Knowledge propounded in sastras is established by its own validity of empirical scientific truth or theological wisdom which exists independent of individual authority. In order to get at comprehensive logical understanding of the concerned matter, sastra-paddhati involves a thorough system analysis such as it considers (a) what has already been said on the issue or antecedent opposing viewpoint, (b) the original and changed context, (c) linguistic paraphrase and explanation, (d) four pramanas that may be specific to any school of thought ., pratyaksa (perception); anumana (inference); upamana (analogy); abhyasa (experience); and sastra vacana or sabda (verbal testimony). Further, sastra paddhati involves  :-

1) sarvabhauma siddhanta (the principle to be upheld), 

2) sruti,

3) darsana-smrti, 

4) itihasa, 

5) sangati (coherence)

6) paribhasa nyaya (rules of interpretation),

 7) loka nyaya(judgement from common experience), 

8) nirvacana (etymology),

 9) vyakarana, 

10) sabda sakti . 

This strong set of  investigative modalities is applied for analysing meaning in knowledge literature.Kavya  has its distinction from sastra in vangamaya and validity of its proposition, unlike sastra, is contingent on individual. That is, kavya does not have knowledge as its first and only motive, hence no interpretation. Statements in kavya are primarily analysed for their ‘charm’, literary conception and expression. In this light one may see why Indian literary theories are constitutive theories that provide frameworks to explain how the texts are formed, how the meaning is developed and through what kinds of linguistic and literary devices. This constitutive analysis consequently explains the sources of delight, their literary contrivance and literary relish on neuro-psychological grounds. This notwithstanding, the powerful sastrapaddhati may be used in interpreting literature.

Literary analysis in Sanskrit criticism abounds in principles such as rasa, alamkara, riti, guna-dosa, dhvani, vakrokti, and aucitya and each of these provide exhaustive literary exegesis within its own concerns as well as relate to each other in the course of matter. However, critical pursuit carried out under these principles would naturally be specific in nature according to their questions. What Rajasekhara affords is a sort of analytical framework that responds to a number of literary and non-literary aspects pertaining to construction of a text and its meaning. Indeed,Rajasekhara’s ken of model analysis being so large, a particular literary instance for critical observation may not do justice to its richness. Interestingly enough, Kavyamimamsa is not the work of poetics proper. Rather, it is a samgraha text, i.e. a text for pedagogical purpose and more so, it is a kavisiksa text. A kavisiksa text, unlike other theoreticalworks, does not expound any literary principle. It is constructed for practical reasons such as instructing the poet about conceiving, composing, drafting, receiving and analysing poetry. Rajasekhara’s exegetical model, which is distinctly mapped out, inheres in the following concerns:

a. narrative dramatic elements

b. types of lexis (sabda and pada)

c. types of poets 

d. nature and sources of literary meaning

e. appropriation of meaning and its pertinence or impertinence

f. modes of sentences

These critical concerns are a set of generalised constitutive categories that can be put to exegetical purport irrespective of difference in culture,language and literature. Here, a model analysis on William Butler Yeats’s ‚Sailing to Byzantium‛ is attempted to show Rajasekhara’s relevance in analysing contemporary texts, even in alien linguistic system and culture.

Rajasekhara distinguishes three units of composition: (i) pada (fully inflected word, a morphological construction), (ii) vakya (sentence), (iii) vacana (statement). Occurrence of these formal categories in a poem can be analysed and quantified.

Rajasekhara informs that poets have a knack for using one or the other vrttis more amongst all and even sub-generic varieties may be identified in terms of predominance of one or the other vrtti. For instance, narrative poem which has dramatic element in it would have greater number of verbs or verbal phrases in comparison to other type like lyric.

Literary discourse and general communication of the people pertain to Manusa vacana. It has figures of speech and other qualities of riti. Meaning here is not as crucial as it is in Brahma or saiva vacanas, for a mode of expression draws much attention to itself. And in literary instance meaning has to be reconstructed out of oblique expression. In this poem, for instance, (the) meaning is of attaining salvation. The world-weary poet finds his liberation in the world of art where he would attain to a blissful stasis in the form of an artifice singing forever ‚of what is past, or passing, or to come.‛  As the theme of reposing in permanent bliss constructs an idea of a heavenly abode, meaning of the poem also lends itself to the other category of Divya-manusa vacana wherein a mortal being seeks after a heightened consciousness.

four sources of meaning, which are more like modes of rendition:

uccitasamyoga (in appropriate context), 

yokrtsamyoga (extended simile);
utpadyasamyoga (showing likeness),

samyogavikara (change of form due to union)

These categories facilitate in evaluating appropriateness of the sources of an idea and their significance for the whole meaning of the composition. All the four pertain to structural framework of the poem and are cognizable in the process of signification. One may attempt to see the ‚Sailing‛ in this light. The poem opens with a plain statement: ‚That is no country for old men.‛ Use of determinative ‘That’ makes opening of the poem noticeable and leaves an impression of continuity of argument in whose sequence the whole poem is a part. This apart, the poem does not impart within embellishing tropes, alliteration or other such literary devices. The imagery of ‚crowded seas‛ with salmon-falls and mackerel, emaciated aged man, sages purging in ‚God’s holy fire‛, gold-laden city, for instance, is synchronised with linguistic and literary austerity. This pertinence observed at structural level makes it favourable for uccitasamyoga, where all linguistic and literary devices exist in harmony and cast a uniform impact on the thematic aspect. These samyogas here must not be literally understood as sources of meaning, though they are discussed under this category by Rajasekhara. These samyogas have their teleological significance which, however, like other sources, lies in their efficacy to affect the process of apprehension of meaning, which is an added edge in communication.Thus, uccitasamyoga realised in the ‚Sailing‛ stands as a poetic merit in the process of signification.

Ideas present in the poem can be traced in the following sources:

1. Loka: (experience of the world) in lines I.

2. Sea voyaging: (reference to the ancient mode of transportation) in II.

3. Education institute: (Byzantium as a hub of artistic activities) in II.

4. Itihasa: ‚city of Byzantium‛ in II., and ‚Grecian goldsmiths‛ in IV.

5. Prakirna: (it includes 64 arts of which there is svarnaratna parisodhan(connoisseurship of gold/diamonds)) ‚gold mosaic‛ in III.18; ‚hammered gold and gold enamelling‛ in IV. 

6. Polity: (reference to the governing authority) ‚drowsy Emperor‛ in IV.

7. Viracana: (creation) poet’s own imagination of his turning into a golden artifice in III.

All these ideas have such sources as their backdrop. Number of sources, their valid understanding, and their appropriate relation to the theme speaks of the poet’s erudition and experience of life. Even if a poet uses private symbols, a reader unbeknown to them would still partially cognise them, for the sources from which symbols are drawn act as shared knowledge. A refuge to the world of art is poet’s own wish and for which Byzantium becomes a symbol of liberation from human limitations. Here, the poet’s state is that of a seeker of truth. The search for internal peace is the major source of meaning.

In this poem arises the issue of poetic reality and scientific truth. Yeats finds his escape in an inanimate piece of object. If life is marked by constant flux, art is perceived with permanent stasis. It is this binary opposition that has inspired many western poets to privilege art over life. This becomes a starting point for any reading, particularly deconstructive. One may reconcile this rough patch by resorting to Rajasekhara’s argument that problem arises only when what is apparent but not real is taken for its surface value. Here, the poet has an apparent wish for his transformation into an artifice, which has an attribute of changelessness. This Yeatsian thesis can well nigh be understood in the Joycean term ‘stasis’ bliss. To Joyce, art is stasis when brought about by the formal rhythm of beauty. Art is that beauty which is divorced from good and evil and so akin to truth. Truth is best approached through intellection and beauty through the three stages of apprehension, . integritas (wholeness), consonantia (harmony), and claritas (radiance). The definition of beautiful starts with the sensory recognition, ‘that is beautiful the apprehension of which pleases’. The epistemological conflict of aesthetics sets in from here when the idea of beauty gains abstraction while predicating on the ephemeral and gross sense perception. [For the full account, see Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)]. This entire proposition is informed of Greek theory of art and European Scholasticism which retains the dyadic structure of art and nature; mind and matter; transient and eternal. And this dyadic structure reverts to itself ad infinitum.

Thank you,

Dilip Barad sir

Words :- 1823

The Setting of the 20th Century Literature

 The Setting of the 20th Century Literature :-

Important movements in drama, poetry, fiction, and criticism took shape in the years before, during, and after World War I. The eventful period that followed the war left its imprint upon books of all kinds. Literary forms of the period were extraordinarily varied, and in drama, poetry, and fiction the leading authors tended toward radical technical experiments.

Although drama had not been a major art form in the 19th century, no type of writing was more experimental than a new drama that arose in rebellion against the glib commercial stage. In the early years of the 20th century, Americans traveling in Europe encountered a vital, flourishing theatre; returning home, some of them became active in founding the Little Theatre movement throughout the country. Freed from commercial limitations, playwrights experimented with dramatic forms and methods of production, and in time producers, actors, and dramatists appeared who had been trained in college classrooms and community playhouses. Some Little Theatre groups became commercial producers for example, the Washington Square Players, founded in 1915, which became the Theatre Guild . The resulting drama was marked by a spirit of innovation and by a new seriousness and maturity.

The Setting of the 20th Century Literature  session taken by Dilip Barad sir " :-

Detective fictions :-

From ancient Greece on, fictional narratives have entailed deciphering mystery. Sophocles’ Oedipus must solve the mystery of the plague decimating Thebes; the play is a dramatization of how he ultimately “detects” the culprit responsible for the plague, who turns out to be Oedipus himself. In the Poetics, Aristotle defines a successful plot as one that has a conflict  that rises to a climax, followed by a resolution of the conflict, a plot line that describes not only Oedipus Rex but also every Sherlock Holmes story.

A particular genre of mystery writing is defined by the mystery at the center of the story that is crucially, definitively solved by a particular person known as a detective, either private or police, who by ratiocination uncovers and sorts out the relevant facts essential to a determination of who did the crime and how and why. The form of detective fiction throughout most of the 19th century was the short story published in various periodicals of the period. A few longer detective fictions were published as separate books in the 19th century, but book-length detective fiction, such as that by Agatha Christie, was really a product of the 20th century.

Most critics of detective fiction see the beginning of the genre in the three stories of Edgar Allan Poe which feature his amateur detective, Auguste Dupin, and were published in the 1840s. Although Poe’s 1840s stories as well as Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, which first appeared in the 1880s, are probably the most well known of 19th-century detective fictions, a number of other writers of generically recognizable detective fiction published stories in the almost fifty years between Poe and Conan Doyle, including a number that featured female detectives. Finally, from the 1890s into the early 20th century, a plethora of new detective fictions, still in short-story form for the most part, appeared not only in Britain but also in France and the United States.

Detective fiction has always been popular, but serious critical interest in the genre only developed in the 20th century. In the second half of that century, this critical interest expanded into the academic world. The popularity of the genre has only continued to grow. Both detective fictions and critical interest in the genre from a variety of perspectives are now an international phenomenon, and detective novels dominate many best-seller lists.

The word detective entered the English language in the mid-1800s, but it is ultimately derived from the Latin detegere, meaning “to uncover.” The label “detective” was not in common usage until there were actual official detectives, which did not happen until the mid-Victorian period, especially after the detective branch of the Metropolitan Police was instituted in 1842 with eight professionals, including two “inspectors.” In 1878, the detective branch was reorganized and renamed the Criminal Investigation Department . By 1888, there were eight hundred officers in the CID.

At almost the same period as the detective branch of the Metropolitan Police was evolving, the genre of detective fiction was also emerging, mainly in the short-story form. In these stories, a mystery or a crime occurs, and an amateur or professional detective is called in to solve it. The detective reveals the solution only at the end of the narrative, when he or she explains how the solution was reached, often through the scientific method conclusions drawn from material evidence. The settings of detective fictions are usually contemporary with the time written and frequently take place in urban areas.

The interest and pleasure in reading detective fiction, for the most part, come from discovering the way the detective uncovers the criminal and the criminal’s motive, which generally are a surprise to everybody, including the reader. The criminal is usually an individual, not part of a professional crime organization, which can be reassuring to the reader. The usually idiosyncratic personality of the detective as well as his or her inevitable success in solving the crime are other pleasures for the readers, which keep them coming back for more adventures of the specific detective whether Sherlock Holmes or, later, Miss Marple or Lord Peter Wimsey. Thus another characteristic of most detective fiction is that the detective goes on to solve other crimes in other stories, making the series an important part of the creation of the character of the detective and the popularity of the genre.

A good number of critics of 19th-century British detective fiction, especially those in the early 20th century, included in their discussions and analyses the detectives in two canonized novels that appeared around the time of the establishment of the detective branch of the Metropolitan Police, the well-known novels Bleak House, by Charles Dickens , whose police detective is Inspector Bucket, and The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins , whose police detective is Sergeant Cuff. However, these classic novels are not centrally constructed around the detective’s work, nor do they culminate in the detective’s revelation of both the criminal who did the crime and how and why he or she did it. Nonetheless, many early critical studies of Victorian detective fiction discuss only Poe’s Dupin, Dickens’s Bucket , Collins’s Sergeant Cuff, and, mainly, Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Coupled with feminist-inspired efforts to recover forgotten works by 19th-century women writers, the critical interest in detective fiction led to the discovery of many forgotten detective fiction writers between the 1840s and World War I. Finally, starting in the second half of the 20th century, critical attention tried to account for the popularity of the genre, using Freudian, Marxist, structuralist, feminist, and postcolonial critiques.

British detective fiction from 1840 to 1914 traces an arc of development from a few precursors to Poe’s Dupin stories and on through a variety of authors and detectives  in the second half of the 19th century to the 1890s and Sherlock Holmes, arguably the best-known fictional detective in the world. Contemporaneous with the Sherlock Holmes stories and frequently influenced by them are an increasing variety of male and female detectives, including, for example, insurance investigators, educated women, doctors, and even a Catholic priest. After World War I, a new arc of development begins with Agatha Christie and the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.

British Detective Fiction after Sherlock Holmes: 1893–1914 :-

The supposed death of Sherlock Holmes in 1893 coincides with another expansion of British detective fiction. New fictional detectives appeared regularly in the magazines from 1893 to 1914; there was, understandably, less publication of the genre during World War I, though there was some.  Many of the new post-Holmes detective stories followed and, in some cases, developed variations on the structure of Conan Doyle, and many of the new detectives, both male and female, had elements of Sherlock Holmes in them. After World War I the detective story moved in a somewhat different direction from its 19th-century predecessors, into the period that has been called the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. This “golden age” began with Agatha Christie’s first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in 1920 and includes, besides Christie, the detective novels of Margery Allingham, Dorothy Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh, as well as Michael Innes, Edmund Crispin, and others in Britain. In France there was George Simenon and, in the United States, John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen, and S. S. Van Dine. Also at this point in the United States, a new type of detective fiction, known as the “hard-boiled school” of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, moved away from the British model. The period between 1893 and 1914 is a kind of interregnum in the development of detective fiction in Britain. Thus this period is a convenient marker of the end of the development of 19th-century detective fiction in Britain.

Among the detectives who appeared in the wake of Sherlock Holmes’s death and reappearance, there was one who had been an insurance investigator; another was a ghost exposer, and at least five were women, one even being a so-called New Woman.11 The first husband-and-wife team of detectives also made their appearance during this period, as did the first armchair detective; another was a doctor, and one was a Roman Catholic priest. Detective fiction also expanded in the United States and in France during these years. In 1913 the first book-length study of the detective fiction genre appeared, The Technique of the Mystery Story, by Carolyn Wells, a prolific American writer who wrote many detective novels. Her guide to detective fiction gave a picture of the field just before the golden age began and included references to many still relatively unknown writers and detectives.

When Conan Doyle decided to kill Sherlock Holmes and end the series, the editors of the Strand scrambled to find a substitute for the popular series. They found Arthur Morrison, who is known now mainly for novels of London poverty. His detective was Martin Hewitt, whose first case, “The Lenton Croft Robberies,” a locked-room mystery, appeared in the Strand in March 1894, three months after Holmes’s supposed demise in “The Final Problem” in December 1893. Twenty-four of Morrison’s Martin Hewitt stories followed , ultimately nineteen of which were collected into three volumes Martin Hewitt, Investigator, The Chronicles of Martin Hewitt , and The Adventures of Martin Hewitt , the next six in The Red Triangle, Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt , which also featured Morrison’s answer to Holmes’s Moriarty, Mayes the master criminal.

 Thank you ,

Dilip Barad sir

word :-1767

Bonfire (Holika Dahan)

Holika :-

Holika  was a demoness in Hindu Vedic scriptures, who was burnt to death with help of God Vishnu. She was the sister of King Hiranyakashipu and aunt of Prahlad.The story of Holika dahan  signifies the triumph of good over evil. Holika is associated with the annual bonfire on the night before Holi, the Hindu festival of colors.

According to Bhagavat purana, there was a king named Hiranyakashipu who, like a lot of demons and Asuras, had the intense desire to be immortal. To fulfill this desire he performed the required Tapas (penance) until he was granted a boon by Brahma. Since the God’s do not usually grant the boon of immortality, he used his guile and cunning to get a boon which he thought made him immortal. The boon gave Hiranyakashyapu five special powers: he could be killed by neither a human being nor an animal, neither indoors nor outdoors, neither at day nor at night, neither by astra nor by any shastra, and neither on land nor in water or air. As this wish was granted, Hiranyakashyapu felt he was invincible, which made him arrogant. Hiranyakashyapu decreed that only he be worshiped as a God, punished and killed anyone who did not accept his orders. His son Prahlad disagreed with his father, and refused to worship his father as a god. He continued believing and worshipping Lord Vishnu.

This made Hiranyakashipu very angry and he made various attempts to kill Prahlad. During a particular attempt on Prahlad’s life, King Hiranyakashyapu called upon his sister Holika for help. Holika had a special cloak garment that prevented her from being harmed by fire. Hiranyakashyapu asked her to sit on a bonfire with Prahlad, by tricking the boy to sit on her lap. However, as the fire roared, the garment flew from Holika and covered Prahlad. Holika burnt to death, Prahlad came out unharmed.Hiranyakashipu is said to be the brother of Hiranyaksha.  Hiranyakashipu and Hiranyaksha are Vishnu’s gatekeepers Jaya and Vijaya, born on earth as the result of a curse from the Four Kumaras.Hiranyaksha was killed by Lord Vishnu’s 3rd Incarnation which was Varaha. and Hiranyakashipu was later killed by Lord Vishnu’s 4th Incarnation which was Narasimha.

Tradition:-

The night before Holi pyres are burnt in North India, Nepal and parts of South India in keeping with this tradition. The youth playfully steal all sorts of things and put them in Holika pyre.
The festival has many purposes; most prominently, it celebrates the beginning of Spring. In 17th century literature, it was identified as a festival that celebrated agriculture, commemorated good spring harvests and the fertile land. Hindus believe it is a time of enjoying spring’s abundant colours and saying farewell to winter. Holi festivities mark the beginning of new year to many Hindus, as well as a justification to reset and renew ruptured relationships, end conflicts and accumulated emotional impurities from past.

Prepare Holika pyre for bonfire :-

Days before the festival people start gathering wood and combustible materials for the bonfire in parks, community centers, near temples and other open spaces. On top of the pyre is an effigy to signify Holika who tricked Prahalad into the fire. Inside homes, people stock up on color pigments, food, party drinks and festive seasonal foods such as gujiya, mathri, malpuas and other regional delicacies.

Holika dahan :-

On the eve of Holi, typically at or after sunset, the pyre is lit, signifying Holika Dahan. The ritual symbolises the victory of good over evil. People sing and dance around the fire.
The next day people play Holi, the popular festival of colors.

Reason for Holika burning :-

The burning of Holika is the most common mythological explanation for the celebration of Holi. In different parts of India varying reasons are given for Holika’s death. Among those are:
Vishnu stepped in and hence Holika burnt.Holika was given the power by the Brahma on the understanding that it can never be used to bring harm to anyone.Holika was a good person and it was the clothes that she wore that gave her the power and knowing that what was happening was wrong, she gave them to Prahlad and hence died herself.

Holika wore a shawl that would protect her from fire. So when she was asked to sit in the fire with Prahlad she put on the shawl and sat Prahlad down in her lap. When the fire was lit Prahlad began praying to Lord Vishnu. So Lord Vishnu summoned a gust of wind to blow the shawl off of Holika and on to Prahlad, saving him from the flames of the bonfire and burning Holika to her death
The next day is known as Color holi or Dhulheti where people play with colors and water spraying pichkaris.
The most colourful festival of the country ‘Holi’:-
Holi is the liveliest festival of India. The very origin of the festival describes and emphasises the triumph of ‘good’ over ‘evil’. Though the festival is generally identified as a celebration of colours, however the eve of Holi popularly known as ‘Holika Dahan’ is celebrated in a completely  different way. It is as important as the main festival itself that takes place the very next day of Holika Dahan.

On the eve of Holi, a bonfire is lit, prayers are offered and the triumph of good over evil is celebrated. There is a famous story behind following this ritual. According to mythology, Hiranyakashyap, the king of demons, demanded that everyone in his kingdom respect and fear him, all of whom did, except one, the demon’s own son Prahalad. The young boy was an ardent worshipper of Lord Vishnu, the Supreme Being. In spite of several warnings and threats from Hiranyakashyap, Prahalad continued to worship Lord Vishnu. After several failed attempts of trying to kill his own son, Hiranyakashyap ordered his sister ‘Holika’, to take prahalad in her lap and sit on a burning pyre. Holika had a boon that made her immune to fire. So she was sure that prahalad would burn to death while she would remain cool. As per Hiranyakashyap’s order, Prahalad sat in his aunt’s lap on a burning pyre and started reciting the name of Lord Vishnu. To everybody’s astonishment, Prahalad survived the fire and Holika burned to death. The devotion and firm belief of the young boy for Lord Vishnu and his good deeds protected him from harm while the evil deeds of demon king led to the death of his own sister. Holika was using her boon to do something evil, so her power vanished and she was burned to ashes. Shortly afterwards, Vishnu killed King Hiranyakashyap and Prahalad ruled as a wise king in his father’s place. To remember the death of the evil, Holika dahan is practiced in many parts of the country on the eve of Holi. A sacred huge bonfire is created and worshipped with full religious fervour. People gather around the bonfire and take pheras barefooted chanting hymns and making sacred offerings. In some parts of the country, a dummy of Holika is also burned on the fire.
Holika Dahan also gives the message that it’s never wise to take God’s gifts for granted. The heat from the fire also depicts that winter is behind and the hot summer days are ahead. The day is also called as ‘Choti Holi’. Next day known as ‘Badi Holi’ or ‘Dulhendi’ is of course the main day of Holi festivities. This day is meant for pure fun, playing with colours, drenching in water, singing and dancing and enjoying colossally.

Myths :-

The myths around Holi have a lot more to do with hubris than with evil women, and yet the festival is named after a wicked aunt whose only crime was to help her brother get what he wanted.
The biggest crime these myths whether we're talking Greek or Roman or Christian  could offer was women who wanted to kill children. What could be more absurd to the ancients? After all, women bore the babies, they were supposed to feed and nurture them, all the most ancient gods were, in fact, mother goddesses. Before we could name the sun and the wind and later, before we could count on gods to rescue us from situations, all ancient people turned to mothers, not named, just mother goddesses to protect them from the nameless things that went bump in the night.
Holika, as you may know, was sister to a king called Hiranyakashipu, a sort of asura, about whom there is a lot more information available than his sister. His brother was killed by Vishnu's boar avatar, and seeking revenge, Hiranyakashipu goes off to pray to Brahma to be completely invincible, i.e, not killed by a human or an animal, not killed in the daytime or night, not killed on land or in space, not with an animate or inanimate object and not killed inside a house or outside. But, as I've mentioned before, those godly loopholes are tricky little things, which meant (spoiler alert) Vishnu did kill him eventually, as his Narsimha avatar: half man half lion, in a doorway (not inside a house or outside!) at dusk and puts the king on his lap (not land or space) where he tears him open with his fingernails. It sounds like the answer to a riddle.
Anyhow, Holika comes into this because while Hiranyakashipu is off worshipping, the gods attack his kingdom and abduct his pregnant wife, and she's given a lot of Vishnu propaganda which eventually trickles down to her fetus, a sort of ancient version of Baby Einstein, and when the baby is born (a boy called Prahlada), he is a full on Vishnu worshipper. Hugely hurt by this betrayal, his dad tries to kill him off many times, including asking his sister Holika to jump into a bonfire with him. Holika apparently was protected by this boon that made her fireproof, but when she got into the fire with Prahlada on her lap, she burnt to death and he survived.

Thank you ,

Dilip Barad sir

words :-1682

Where God is a Traveller

 ARUNDHATHI SUBRAMANIAM :-

Arundhathi Subramaniam is the award-winning author of twelve books of poetry and prose, including the recent poetry volume, Love Without a Story, the acclaimed sacred poetry anthology, Eating God and the bestselling biography of a mystic, Sadhguru: More Than a Life. A well-known prose writer on Indian spirituality, she has been a long-standing arts critic, anthologist, performing arts curator and poetry editor. She is the recipient of various awards and fellowships, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, the inaugural Khushwant Singh Prize, the Raza Award for Poetry, the Zee Women’s Award for Literature, the International Piero Bigongiari Prize in Italy, the Mystic Kalinga award, the Charles Wallace, Visiting Arts and Homi Bhabha Fellowships, among others. She has written extensively on culture and spirituality, and has worked over the years as poetry editor, cultural curator and critic.Arundhathi is the author of six books of poetry,most recently Love Without a Storyand, andWhen God is a Traveller.As prose writer, her books include The Book of Buddha, the bestselling biography of a contemporary mystic, Sadhguru: More Than a Life and most recently, Adiyogi: The Source of Yoga . As editor, her most recent book is the Penguin anthology of sacred poetry, Eating God.

Subramaniam won the award for her poetry collection ‘When God is a Traveller’ in English.Poet Arundhathi Subramaniam is among the 20 writers to receive the Sahitya Akademi Award for 2020, reported PTI. The National Academy of Letters announced the names on Friday at its annual ‘’Festival of Letters’’ event.Subramaniam won the award for her poetry collection When God is a Traveller in English.The 2020 winners’ list includes seven books of poetry, four novels, five short stories, two plays, and one each of memoirs and epic poetry in 20 Indian languages. The awards for Malayalam, Nepali, Odia and Rajasthani will be announced later, said the Akademi.Apart from Subramaniam, the others who received the award in poetry include Harish Meenakshi (Gujarati), Anamika (Hindi), RS Bhaskar (Konkani), Irungbam Deven (Manipuri), Rupchand Hansda (Santali), and Nikhileswar (Telugu).

Congress leader M Veerappa Moily also received the award for his epic poem Sri Bahubali Ahimsadigvijayam in Kannada.Other winners included novelists Nanda Khare (Marathi), Maheshchandra Sharma Gautam (Sanskrit), Imaiyam (Tamil) and Sri Hussain-ul-Haque (Urdu).The Akademi named Apurba Kumar Saikia (Assamese), Dharanidhar Owari (Bodo), Hiday Koul Bharti (Kashmiri), Kamalkant Jha (Maithili) and Gurdev Singh Rupana (Punjab) winners in the short stories section. Gian Singh (Dogri) and Jetho Lalwani (Sindhi) received the award for their plays, while Mani Shankar Mukhopadhyay (Bengali) got it for his memoir.

Videos :-

When God Is a Traveller :-

'When God is a Traveller', Subramaniam weaves metaphors, metaphors that are distinctly hers, into language that is simultaneously fluid and simple. Everydayness is woven as a metaphor rife with allusions to the deeper meanings of life. At first glance, the poems from this collection come across as beautiful but not oh-my-god-this-blew-my-mind-away. Not yet. But there is a vulnerability, an intimacy in this text which so exquisitely and slyly draws you in like a comfortable Ikat kurta until you are “drowning in verse” .

Many readings of this award-winning text exist but they highlight the religious aspect of the text. While it undoubtedly adheres to a certain religious context, it differs widely in terms of the figures of the Hindu pantheon represented, that is, the ones within the text are not really the most popular of the Hindu gods. Moreover, what Subramaniam does is that she uses these figures but challenges the canonical religious stories through her representations, as can be observed in the poem ‘Benaras’, an underappreciated piece in my opinion. She tries to highlight the personal side of one’s religious beliefs, for instance in the poem ‘How Some Hindus Find Their Personal Gods’.

Finally, what especially stands out in Subramaniam’s poetry collection is the imagery. Even when the meaning of the poems eludes the reader, the meaning-making processes remain accessible through the vivid images constructed, which interact with each other to produce meaning. In this text, the meaning is created through the words as well as through the imagery. This gives it a subliminal quality of sorts.

All in all, a delightful read. The allusions of Hinduism do leave scope for criticism. However, I think the Hinduism in the text alludes to the Bhakti tradition, a countercultural movement to the canonical tradition. But oh, the words, the language, the imagery- they entrapped me, an unsuspecting reader and I have zero regrets.

This book actually contains 22 poems from the “Deeper in Transit” section of Where I Live, thus there is substantial overlap in poems between books. Still, there are 29 new poems in this book, and it is a beautiful hardcover with very attractive cover art, making it a nice little book of poetry to carry around. The 22 duplicate poems are worth reading again, anyway. “Leapfrog” and “Catnap” were quoted in my review of Where I Live. Writing about gods, goddesses, and heroines as well as daily life, and a favourite topic of writing on writing, this little book is well worth reading and travelling along the various textual references which lead to empty space, which is the terrain of gods, goddesses, and heroines.

The book cover features a rich, blue, green, and gold peacock, feathers spread across about one-third of the cover, flowers blooming on a shrub in another corner, above darkness with the silhouette of a hunter shooting an arrow into a stag leaping in death throes. In “Eight Poems for Shakuntala,” Arundhathi Subramaniam pens some modern lines on Shakuntala whose story is told in the Mahabharata. One day King Dushyanta shot a stag with an arrow and pursued the wounded animal through the forest, when instead of his prey, he stumbled across Shakuntala and fell in love with her and married. Dushyanta gave her a ring, but left back to the palace, saying he would return later to fetch her. In the meantime, Shakuntala, pining for her absent love, accidently insulted a holy man who cursed her, that the man who gave her the ring would not remember her, unless she were to show him the ring he gave her. Time passed and Shakuntala lost the ring while crossing a river and when she arrived to court, Dushyanta did not recognize her. Heart-broken, she returned to the forest and gave birth the child she had conceived on Dushyanta’s first visit. A fisherman found the ring in the belly of a fish, presented it to the king, who then remembered his lost bride and searched for her, finding her again and meeting his son, and thus the family was reunited. Poems 3 and 5 in the series capture the longing of Shakuntala whilst waiting in the forest for Dushyanta’s return.

Subramaniam often writes about the mundane as well as the sublime in her poems, and often there ends up being a poem or two about a cat. In “I Knew a Cat” she writes of the pain of losing a beloved furry friend

In the poem which gives the book its title, “When God is a Traveller,” Subramaniam muses about “Kartikeya Subramania, my namesake.” Kartikeya Subramania is known by all those names, as well as Skanda, and is the son of Śiva, in some legends of him alone, as is born of  parvati alone, but also often considered the son of both Śiva and parvati . Subramania is the god of war who is also known as he renounces war in some legends and retreats to the mountains.

This is a theme not unrelated to Meera's: how to lose Earthly kingdoms, but gain the  self. As Subramaniam puts it, "Bhakti  is very much the spirit of these poems  a passionate, far from anti-carnal or anti-intellectual bhakti. I think we've often turned devotion into an anaemic animal."

This bhakti in her poems also reflects a transition in her life since I was last in touch with her, in the 1990s. "Earlier I thought that my public persona would be about 'the Arts', and my private self would be about 'spirituality'. A near-death experience in 1997 and an encounter with a spiritual guide in 2004 have shaped my life on a very fundamental level."

Many of the old divides blasted away, and the poems in this volume reflect that. But what about the other divide: that between the poet and the reader? "Some would view you as a high-intellectual. How accessible do you think your poems are?"

Subramaniam recalls that when she was 13, she stumbled across a volume of TS Eliot's poems. She did not understand all of it, but "I knew I was in the presence of beauty, and mystery." She didn't know who Eliot was. For the 13-year-old, he was her discovery.

"We all want mystery as much as we want clarity. There is beauty and truth in the patterning of the two. Hundred-watt radiance is fine for shopping malls, not for poems!"

Subramaniam adds that she loves Randall Jarrell's comment, that people haven't stopped reading modern poetry because it's difficult: they find it difficult because they've stopped reading it.

Thank you ,

Dilip Barad sir

                                                words :- 1525