Post Colonial Literature ~ a misnomer

Us Versus Them

Whosoever  is responsible for coining this misnomer term has fulfilled his own objective of dividing culture of many nations into  Colonial and Post Colonial eras, in terms of a historical event that would ever remind the oppressed of their humiliating past. For political and economic purposes it could have been tolerable, but for art and literature it is sheer absurd. The word was easily picked up by West who have unlimited craving for establishing their superiority over the rest of the world.

No such distinction has been made for Second World War. It was a major event that divided history in two parts. So far as literature is concerned, it was termed  "Postmodern Literature" that was based on narrative techniques and style. And not on any historical or political event.

The cover page of Edward Said's book 'Orientalism' shows naked butt of a teenage boy who is a snake charmer. It is funny that how the westerners are so overwhelmed by snake charmers of India. Due to humid subtropical climate of India and dense forest snakes were part of the vast biodiversity of India. Being an environmentalist since ancient time Indians did not kill snakes, rather they worshipped them. It was found that snakes dance to the tune of special musical instrument called Been and can be captured easily once they are hypnotized by snake charmers. So whenever snakes encroached in human territories of urban area, they were caught and deported back to their natural habitat. So what's the big deal about it?

Black Skin White Mask (1952) written by Franz Fanon is a good attempt to understand the black people specially who move upward in the white dominated society and start wearing a white mask even when they go to sleep. One day they forget their original face and become a distorted version of Homo Sapiens. Any  person would behave strangely when subjected to all together different culture, and when whole race undergoes certain similar experiences it may lead to form a Collective Unconsciousness. The psychoanalysis can only play a small important role in determining and understanding the behavioral pattern of such race.

Bharati Mukherjee,   RK Narayan, Mahashweta Devi, Anita Desai, Arundhati Roy and Jhumpa Lahiri are some of the Indian writers who are labeled as post colonial writers.

Some defects in the dogma of Post Colonial Literature are mentioned here.

1. Loss of Identity : One of the popular belief is that 'native' suffered from loss of identity once they were decolonized. The literature created in languages other than English is not dominated by this subject. Very few writers wrote in English but either they did not live in colony or did not have firsthand experience of  colonial and postcolonial life.

2. Cultural Erosion: We can also call it cultural enrichment. This has happened in East as well as West. The history of English literature in Britain  from Anglo-Latin to late modernism and twenty first century literature shows their enrichment.

3. Value-Shift: Shifting of values is a constant phenomenon in any society. There could be difference of opinion on the issue whether values went up or down during certain time period. If we go by thumb rule that change is always good, the shift in values was imminent weather it was colony or not. The same shift happened in many other countries who were not colony at that time.

4. Us Versus Them: It is alleged that colonizer countries discarded everything that pertained to the culture of Colony and imposed their superiority. It is also said that despite the fact that many decolonized  countries continued to be dominated by their colonizers politically, economically and culturally. It needs to be analyzed with open mind and paradigm shift. The superpowers of the world have always dominated rest of the world. Out of 192 counties of the World how many countries have economic, political and cultural sovereignty. Since World is Conical there is always tug of war between Us and Them.

5. Inferiority Complex: Eurocentric Universalism takes for granted the superiority   of West and inferiority of East. This argument is also not tenable. Many Europeans like Max Muller, Schopenhauer, Sir John Woodruffs were highly impressed by Easter Culture. Many are still of the view that India would be World Guru in 21 Century and would lead the World from "Darkness to the Light". 

There is need to change the nomenclature. The Indian English Literature is good for Indian writing in English. It has acquired a "Selfhood" by moving towards self assertion and self definition in is journey of two hundred years. It is tolerable to identify Literature by region but it is absolutely wrong to use a derogatory term like Post-Colonial Literature. The Stranger King needs a paradigm shift to come out of obsession to control culture of countries through economic measures.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

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The World is Conical

                                                        The world is Conical

                                                          

After acknowledging that the World is Flat it would be a greater task to make us appreciate how and why the World is Conical? We need not to search for new parameter (except a few unavoidable, overlooked due to prejudice), but a paradigm shift towards a horizon which remains unseen when our World is flat or round.

The first Economist of the world was the one who designed the coin as round and flat. Since that day whole thinking of mankind has started revolving round the money. Sigmund Freud's theory of symbolism  would have easily found connotation of the formulation of these structures with genitals since people have many different conception of the same object. A round object has a different conception than conical.

Some arguments in favor of Conical World are-

1. Narrow Vision- People have a better vision at a flat surface. It seems many things that are obvious are being ignored by mankind due to narrow vision. (No, I am not talking about Ozone layer or any other environmental issue). Rich thinks that they will remain rich forever, and poor thinks they will not remain poor forever. This difference in thinking process is dragging the world towards a chaos unimaginable for mankind. The elite who occupies the top niche of the pyramid or cone are justified in being myopic since for a vision you have to look horizontally and not downwards.

2. Earth is Multidimensional- A cone has many dimensions, we explore and find a new dimension every time. Even that dimension also has many dimensions and we are caught in the web. With the advance technology of navigation we surely have succeeded in measuring few dimensions, but much is still in the dark. A flat or round surface can not have many dimensions, but Earth as a conical structure is multidimensional and unexplored.

3. Top-Notch-Triangle- The top notch people have the facility to make their own triangle. They make every possible effort to make the angle acute, so they have to deal with very few people of the same feathers. As a reaction bottom notch person also forms two triangles at the extremes of the larger triangle, but they are diagonally opposite to each other in their point of view about balance of power with top-notch-people. Rightist think that suffering is their fate and live contentedly and Leftist are rebels who fight against a system without any means. When  these two extreme groups would join hands, they would have inverted the triangle to make the world conical in real sense.

4. Oil and Weapons- To think and act like owner of all the oil fields of the world, you don't need to be an economist. You already have a faith in "I am the Monarch of all I survey, my right there is none to dispute" (William Cowper), and reach to the lands of treasure as plunderers. Oil is the only wealth of the world, which flat world ignores to mention. Moreover, they can sell arms to middle notch people to drop on bottom notch people, this keeps both of these hateful communities away from top-notch-people.

5. Fighting against insecurities- It is always easy to retreat when the world is flat. Wealthy people are paranoid and the compunction attached with wealth makes them insecure. They have a subconscious defense mechanism to survive in worst condition, even when everybody else would perish. ( Don't forget cryonics). Since the world is conical there is no retreat for top notch people. They can only stumble and die.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Excerpts from his unpublished book "World is Conical"

Fooled by Translation

        

                      Fooled By Translation

Had India not remained slave to British for many centuries, our perception of English as a language would have been different. The words like Pre-Colonial  and Post-Colonial Literature would not have segmented our rich heritage of Sanskrit and Hindi Literature. One can dare say that amazing books have been written in Hindi and regional languages in India, which are at par, if not superior to books written in English. India has not come out of the spell cast by “Queen’s Language” which British thought was their monopoly.

However, USA also remained a colony but the English was already a native language of America, which is acknowledged as American English. While the Indian English is considered as crude copy of standard British English and has failed to develop an identity like American English.

The fact that despite critiques accused “Of man and mice” a masterpiece by John Steinbeck for vulgarity, racism and slang, the author was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature and American Literary Association classified the book as “Most challenged book of 21st Century”.

The Nobel Laureate of USA, Saul Bellow, Canadian born American author was brought up in Chicago and English was his native language. His books viz., The dangling man, Herzog, Seize the day, Revelstein are written in American English which has its own set of rules for  spelling, grammar, punctuation and style which are sometimes in contradiction to standard British English.

Most of the popular books that we read were not written in English originally. For example Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez, Paulo Coelho wrote in Spanish, Fyodor Dostoyevsky , Anton Chekhov Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, Maxim Gorky, Boris Pasternak, Vladimir Nabokov, in Russian,  Haruki Murakami Yasunari Kawabata in Japanese, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Victor Hugo  Gustave Flaubert, Simone de Beauvoir in French.

These are only a few examples of popular authors. Sometime you may come across a bad translation and then it would be difficult to complete that book. Jacques Derrida says

“What must be translated of that which is translatable can only be the untranslatable. ”

Original always lacks its translation. It depends upon the translator if it fills up the gap in the way a story was created and perception of the reader, or widens it. Samuel Beckett who was a bilingual author who wrote in English as well as French said that the translator’s failure is, thus, an ‘interesting failure’.

Most of Indian knows good English but they are afraid of speaking and writing something because they think that some would mock at them, who has nothing substantial to say but has little better knowledge of grammar or punctuation.

The proper outlet for the creativity of such persons is translation of rich Hindi and regional language literature into English, if they have nothing to say anything of their own.

English is the lingua Franca of the world. If what is said is understood as it should be, the purpose of the language is served.

It is high time we make our own Chicago manual (may be Mumbai Manual) . The Mumbai has more English speaking people than anywhere else in India, and that too without hesitation of getting a tag.
Views of Gabriel Garcia Marquez on translator

"I have great admiration for translators except for the ones who use footnotes. They are always trying to explain to the reader something which the author probably did not mean; since it’s there, the reader has to put up with it. Translating is a very difficult job, not at all rewarding, and very badly paid. A good translation is always a re-creation in another language. That’s why I have such great admiration for Gregory Rabassa. My books have been translated into twenty-one languages and Rabassa is the only translator who has never asked for something to be clarified so he can put a footnote in. I think that my work has been completely re-created in English. There are parts of the book which are very difficult to follow literally. The impression one gets is that the translator read the book and then rewrote it from his recollections. That’s why I have such admiration for translators. They are intuitive rather than intellectual. Not only is what publishers pay them completely miserable, but they don’t see their work as literary creation. There are some books I would have liked to translate into Spanish, but they would have involved as much work as writing my own books and I wouldn’t have made enough money to eat."

                                                           ~Vipin Behari Goyal

The future of English fiction writers in India (2)

The future of English fiction writers in India (2)

                                                                                 [Mehek Bassi - Indian English Author]

The interesting generalization about Indian English Authors who have become famous recently is their background. They have a higher technical degree and work in Banks/Financial Institutions. What makes them author? Except that they were born to be authors. They had a natural talent for the art of telling a story. Whatever novels have been written and published in the last one decade which one of them fall in the category of English Literature?

Encyclopedia Britannica defines “English literature, the body of written works produced in the English language by inhabitants of the British Isles”. Many famous authors of English Literature settled outside the British Isle like James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Aldus Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Robert Graves, and Graham Greene etc. The books written by Indian authors are classified as Indian English Literature or IEL. In India English has a status of second language. English as a second language (ESL) is the use or study of English by speakers with different native languages.

The countries like Great Britain, USA, Canada and Australia form an inner circle where English is the primary language. India and Singapore, are extended circle of English where it is the second language in a multilingual society. The third category is of countries like China and Japan, which form expanding circles where English is getting popular as a foreign language.

Unfortunately it is not the Hindi our mother tongue and national language, but English is the lingua Franca that connects the whole country. Much powerful literature has been written in regional languages which need to be translated in English. The business of publishing books seems to have more moral and ethical responsibilities, which again is a debatable issue. But one thing is sure that the future of Indian English fiction publishers is co-related to the future of Indian English writers.

The future would not be decided by The Great Authors like Vikram Seth or Arundhati Roy as they do not have mass appeal. Their novels were read by book lovers, who was already reading foreign authors. The English novels of Chetan Bhagat and Amish Tripathi etc. found a niche market.

A niche market is defined as “the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing. So the market niche defines the specific product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that is intended to impact.”

English should be the first preference to write if you can think, imagine, read and write in English. English like any other language is not monopoly of any nation.

About a thousand years back the nobility of England spoke French and read Latin and ordinary people spoke Old English which evolved as Middle English under the influence of Germanic, Romance and Celtic languages. Modern English has come a long way in last hundred years and it will be New English in coming hundred years.

English is the universal language by chance. Now it belongs to all equally. Books written in one part of the world in English are as good as written in any other part. So let us not confine language in the man-made boundaries of nations.

Kudos to the authors and publishers!!!

Salute to the whistleblowers and torch bearers!!!

The niche market is hungry and few books that have come so far are only appetizers.

Give them healthy food, lest they fall for junk food.

                                                                               ~Vipin Behari Goyal
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                                                      [Jyoti Arora-Indian English Author]




The English fiction writing has undergone many ups and downs in last few decades.

 Since, Nirad C. Chaudhuri (The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian), Mulk Raj Anand (The untouchable) and R.K.Narayan (The Guide), who wrote simple heart touching stories about the people around them, the flavor has been maintained by Jhumpa Lahiri (The Namesake)  and Sudha Murthy(wise and otherwise) till the current decade.

Some authors became famous for controversial writing as Khushwant Singh(A history of Sikhs) and Salman Rushdie(Satanic Verses) who wrote against religion or Shobha De to Arundhti Roy who said, did or wrote things to hurt the sentiments of people.

Vikram Seth(A Suitable Boy), Amitav Ghosh (The Glass Palace )wrote  literary English books that were highly acclaimed by Indian as well as foreign critiques.

The contribution of R.N.Tagore and V.S. Naipaul (both are Nobel laureate) is beyond my words.

These authors caused ripples in the literary world which was enjoyed by all those who love reading Indian English Authors.

Then the new wave emerged called Chetan Bhagat with his debut English novel “Five point someone”. It was a retold Indian version of Peter Robinson’s novel “Snapshots from hell”. Many surfers took the ride and a new wave was set in.

Love story is an eternal theme of literature since eleventh century when first novel was written. The youth of India had so far read few Mills and Boon was eager to explore the Indian counterparts of that series. The authors of this wave did not disappoint their readers and Indian book stalls were flooded with Boy-meets-Girl kind of romantic novels. It developed reading habits in youth that was lost in maze of cricket, cinema and career. The identity crisis of Indian youth and their dilemma to follow traditions and anxiety to be identical to their Western counterparts led them to read books in search of solutions. How far the Indian authors have been successful in suggesting remedies or at least, a better comprehension of the situation is anybody’s guess.

Literature is said to be the mirror of society. Indian youth is torn between old and new values but is not ready to revolt against age-old traditions. The medieval values of caste system, arranged marriage, dowry, child marriages, veil system, female feticide, divorce, inequality of men and women have become issues of yesterday, and youth is open to new wave of gender equality, choosing life partner and ready to share equal responsibility in raising children.

The basic values are deeply rooted in the psyche of Indian youth. Most of them respect and take care of elders and parents and are religious from the core of their heart. The medieval values emerged with Muslim invaders and strengthened with British Empire in India. Now after 65 years of Indian independence, when most of the population of India is born in free India a radical change is bound to come.

The Indian English authors should divert to serious writing suggesting pragmatic solutions of contemporary social issues, to sustain the hobby of reading in youth.

Amar Nath Prasad in his book Indian Writing in English said"The plant of Indian writing in English must develop its root quite deep into the fertile soil of Indian myths and culture."

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© Vipin Behari Goyal