EDITORIAL
Much
has happened, especially with respect to the Indian landscape, since I greeted
our esteemed readers with the March 2025 edition of Re-Markings. Reflecting on
the modern world, amid the disillusionment arising from the ruins of World War
I, T. S. Eliot had stated, at the very beginning of his magnum opus The
Waste Land, “April is the cruellest month.” Eliot’s utterance (made in
1922) with a eclectic mix of “memory and desire” came to haunt our nation and,
in turn, the world through a gory event that took place on 22 April 2025 at
Baisaran near Pahalgam in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district. It is ironical
that the tragedy was orchestrated in the land that had always attracted
tourists and visitors from every nook and corner of the world resonating the
efficacy of the Farsi couplet, “Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast,/ Hameen
ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast” (If there is a paradise on earth,/ It is this,
it is this, it is this.” While the tourists were engaged in breathing in the
beauty, and getting a true feel of the designated ‘paradise’ on the fateful day,
the sound of gun shots shattered the peace and tranquillity of the place as a
handful of terrorists cut short the lives of 26 people with unimaginable
cruelty and barbarism.
Again,
the portentous significance of the month of April can be seen with regard to the
decision of the apex court on 3 April 2025 wherein it upheld the 22 April 2024
order of the Calcutta High Court invalidating the appointments of nearly 25000
school teachers recruited by the West Bengal government way back in 2016.
Consequently, the lives, hopes and dreams of these teachers along with that of
their kith and kin lay shattered beyond reprieve. Those who have great
expectations from the blindfolded deity of justice may wonder what punishment
was or will be meted out to the actual conspirators, executors and
beneficiaries responsible for the “egregious violations and illegalities” in
the conduct of the appointment process. Perhaps, the guilty will continue to
roam scot-free and enjoy their lives as the Lords of the World like the
terrorists at Pahalgam. Ironically, such instances of unmitigated suffering and
misery inflicted by the perpetrators of organised crime and injustice are common
in most countries of the planet we inhabit.
Another
disturbing and distressing event that I cannot help mentioning here concerns
the crash of the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner at Sardar Vallabh-bhai
Patel International Airport, Ahmedabad. The said flight bound for London Gatwick
crashed within 38 seconds after the take-off and was reduced to a huge ball of
fire killing all but one of the 241 on board and 19 others at the B. J. Medical
College (crash site) in Ahmedabad. Incidentally, the date was 12 June 2025 (not
April) and time 1:39 P.M. IST. Made one recall the title of Arthur Koestler’s
novel Darkness at Noon. The tragic event that extinguished so many lives
in less than a minute leads us to introspect into the realm of what we call
Destiny or God’s Will and also makes us speculate on the time span that
separates life and death. We are left to wonder if we are like “flies to wanton
boys” in the Lear(an) sense or the “sport” of the “President of the Immortals”
as visualized by Thomas Hardy in Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
It
is evident that with the passage of time we are bound to erase from the canvas
of our individual and collective memories calamitous events and their impact.
People will and should move forward and accept how paradise too is fraught with
the mischievous and mysterious presence of evil in various forms. This may
sound like an exhortation of sorts but we must accept that amnesia, like
change, is an inherent law of nature. However, for the souls that are sensitive
and concerned about the fate and predicament of human beings at large will find
a space in the memory chip of their fertile brain where such events and their ramifications
thereof will crystallize into thoughts and ideas that will desperately yearn to
find expression in one form or the other.
In
this context it becomes imperative to transform our anguish and pain, anxiety
and fear, negation and despair, into, what P. B. Shelley refers to in his poem “To
a Skylark”: “Singing hymns unbidden,/ Till the world is wrought/ To sympathy
with hopes and fears it heeded not.” This is the power of literature that
inspires us to engage ourselves in speaking truth to power and authority
through our writings and action rather than turning our heads away and pretending
that all is well within and around.
We
are celebrating this year the centenary of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great
Gatsby. It is not just following a traditional ritual. If we only care to
look at only the opening and closing lines of the novel, it will tell us what wisdom
we can get from a writer. The passages, narrated by Nick Carraway, are as
follows:
“In
my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve
been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing
any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t
had the advantages that you’ve had.’” (opening line)
Gatsby
believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes
before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster,
stretch out our arms farther. . .(closing line)
It
is heartening indeed that the current issue of Re-Markings, like each of its 51
earlier editions, offers an amazing variety of valuable critical and creative
discourses, contributed by globally acclaimed writers as well as young teachers
and scholars, that provide convincing evidence of our committed engagement to examine
and explore contentious issues of gender, colour, race, caste, class, religion,
war, violence etc., worldwide. I believe it must be very gratifying to continue
to strive for the creation of a better world where the fear of darkness can be
dispelled by the shining glory of light. Good luck and fare forward!
Nibir K. Ghosh
Chief Editor
CONTENTS
Viewpoints From California - Jonah Raskin
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby at 100 / 7, Memories of Vietnam / 12, Mrs. Dalloway (1925): Virginia Woolf’s Modernist Masterpiece of Imperial Decline / 16
The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: A Conversation with Professor Peniel E. Joseph - Robin Lindley / 22
A Willful Amnesia - E. Ethelbert Miller / 30
The Ecstasy and Agony of ‘American Prometheus’: Christopher Nolan’s Film Oppenheimer -
Deena Padayachee / 33
Paradigms of Evolution in Francophone African Women Writings: Léonora Miano’s Twilight of Torment - Nibir K. Ghosh / 38
Poetry of David Herbert Lawrence: The Modern Georgian? - Deepa Chaturvedi / 50
Fractured Futures: Reading Critical Feminist Dystopia -Palak Singla & Tanya Mander / 58
W. Ross Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety and Stanley Fish’s Reader-Response Theory: Exploring Cybernetics and Literature Interface - Bani Dayal Dhir / 69
Pangs of Partition in Contemporary Indian and Bangladeshi Literature - Manas Bakshi / 77
The Politics of Gendered Identities: Reassessing Hegemonic Masculinity - Narinder K. Sharma & Niharika / 82
Disability Literature and Culture: Representations and Cultural Shifts - Baljeet Kaur / 90
Body as a Site of Violence and Resistance: Reading Mahasweta Devi’s “Draupadi” - Richa / 99
Resilience-building Among Youth: A Psychoanalytical Study of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun -
Bismita Manjari Biswal &
Afreen Ali / 105
Reviving Roots: Folklore Conservation in the Plays of Girish Karnad - Nishant Sharma &
Manjusha Kaushik / 110
Women Archetype in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Forest of Enchantments - Arati Kumari Thakur / 117
Indian Culture, Traditional Glories, and Idealistic Philosophy in the Poetry of Henry Derozio, Toru Dutt, and Sarojini Naidu - Emily Pandey / 125
Sukumar Ray’s Nonsense Literature: A Critique of British Colonial Hypocrisy, Corruption and Oppression in Bengal - Aradhana Bose / 131
Reading Sharan Kumar Limbale’s Dalit Autobiography - The Outcaste as a Rebel Narrative Adiba Faiyaz / 141
Poetry
Three Poems - Walter W. Hoelbling - the shame of the world / 151, let us remember / 152, Halloween / 153
Four Poems - Tuncay Gary - From the ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs Mosque / 153, Today I was born / 154, Today Jesus will come / 155, Trumpeting and Musking / 155,
Death of Humanity - Diya Singh / 156
Book Review
Shanta Acharya’s Dear Life - Claire Cox / 158
COMMENTS
Thank you very much for the September issue, which you can already send out in August. I've already read your foreword, and you've drawn a very good analogy. Using Plato's metaphor, you manage to connect everything. We shouldn't be afraid of the darkness or the light. Rather, we should look around to see what grimaces stare back at us or what gentle glances enchant us. - Tuncay Gary, Berlin, Germany
Dear Nibir: Congratulations on
this new issue of that outstanding and internationally important literary
journal, Re-Markings. This is good news, indeed. Maha
dhanyavada.
All best and blessings.- Dr. Charles Johnson, US National Book Award Winner
Thank you so much, Nibir. This is an honour and the consequence on your part of a great deal of hard work. Regards and with a great deal of respect, Dr. Deena Padayachee, Durban, south Africa
