Possession by Kamala Markandaya | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Possession was the third novel by Kalpana Markandaya that was published in 1963. One can say that the basic story of Possession could be the inspiration behind the recent successful movie RRR. The novel depicts the intermingling of Indian ethos and British culture and presents a contrast between materialism and spirituality. Unlike her first novel Nectar in a Sieve, Kamala didn’t write Possession in an autobiographical manner, rather she wrote this novel as a narrative narrated by a character of the novel. Possession is another example of Diasporic literature in which Kamala Markandara, despite being an expatriate British depicts the clash of British culture and Indian spirituality realistically and appears to side with her roots in India. The story is set in 1949, that is, Independent India.

Characters of Possession:

Valmiki is the protagonist of the novel. He is a simple young man from an Indian village belonging to the goatherd community. Though Valmiki is illiterate, he is a naturally gifted artist who loves to draw paintings on the walls of the rocky caves near his village. He is attached to a spiritual guru Swami who lives at the hilltop near the village. Swami is a well-known person who is a globetrotter with no fixed home. Valmiki has immense faith in Swami and he spends most of his time in or around the Ashram of Swami while remaining detached from his parents and other relatives. Caroline Bell is a British young woman belonging to a rich aristocratic family. She is a typical capitalist who believes in exploiting the poor physically as well as mentally. Caroline discovers the talent of Valmiki and tries to possess him as his talented pet artist to satisfy her ego and lust while pretending to provide a greater better platform and society to Valmiki whom she buys from his parents and rechristens as Val. Ellie is a young British woman battered in body and soul by the Germans during the Second world war. She is physically maimed and is emotionally so bruised that despite the daily raping that she had been subjected to as a war prisoner, she has lost her fertility. Val sympathizes with her and loves her. His warmth brings a lot of improvement in Ellie who becomes pregnant with his child. Annabel is another British teen girl who becomes her friend of Val. Anasuya is an Indian woman, a journalist, and a reporter. She is a friend of Caroline who tries to dissuade her from buying Valmiki but Caroline remains adamant. Anasuya is the narrator who tells the story from an Indian point of view.

Summary of Possession:

The story depicts a clash between the western materialistic society with capitalistic ego and the spiritual sensual ethos of India. Caroline Bell is the representative of typical capitalism who believes in exploiting the poor physically as well as mentally. Swami on the other hand represents the human bond in its most nascent form. Kamala Markandaya chose Valmiki as the protagonist’s name because traditionally, Valmiki is the saint-poet who composed the Ramayana. As per the folklore, Valmiki was a hunter who became an ascetic on divine inspiration, learning to chant the holy name of Rama; turned ascetic and one day discovered that he had become a poet.

The story begins as Caroline Bell, a high-class English woman travels to India along with her friend Anasuya. When she visits a remote South Indian village she discovers the genius of an inspired artist who is a simpleton goatherd having no touch with modern society. Caroline is too impressed by him and his art but instead of feeling genuine love and appreciation, she emerges herself in feelings of egoistic possession and decides to somehow own the man as her pet artist and become his patron. Thus, she devises a plan to buy this artist so that she may possess him and his art. This artist is Valmiki who belongs to the goatherd community. His parents are very poor and he spends most of his time near the Ashram of a local Hindu saint Swami whom he considers his Guru. Swami inspires Valmiki who has a natural talent for painting. Valmiki often spends his time painting the walls of local caves near the hill of the village. When Caroline observes those paintings, she realizes that Valmiki has a rare talent, a born artist. But a born artist is not faultless and needs investment for improvement. She proposes good fortune for the parents of Valmiki if they let her take Valimiki to London, Britain where she will groom her to be a successful artist. To achieve her goal, she takes the help of her Indian friend Anasuya who is a young journalist and reporter. Anasuya realizes that under the veil of helping an artist, Caroline wants to possess Valmiki as property to satisfy her lust and greed. When Caroline persists, she argues that the Indian boy Valmiki may have a family whom he may not want to leave them. They may not want to leave him. She further argues that Valmiki is a human being, even if he is a goatherd and a simpleton. He is not a toy to be picked up and discarded when something else takes your fancy. However, Caroline remains adamant. Caroline manages to persuade Valmiki’s parents as she offers a huge amount and other facilities to them, but she finds strong resistance from Valmiki who is not willing to go away from his Guru Swami. Caroline is concerned Valimiki is a way to achieve success for her in society but she is worried about Swami whom she considers his main adversary who can stop her from achieving her goal. Anyhow, she succeeds in taking hold of Valmiki through her conceits.

Valmiki is still a young adolescent boy, away from the lustful life of adultery. Caroline takes him to Britain where she keeps him as a pet artist and being his patron, they live under the same roof. Caroline gradually introduces Valmiki to the Western culture and starts proselytizing him. He has so many charms to develop lust and he does start changing. Meanwhile, he is also getting modern education and training as an accomplished artist. She gives a new name to Valmiki and he becomes famous as Val.

In Britain, Val develops a friendship with Annabel who is a typical English girl of the 1950s. She is against her family's will and turns down their plans for getting her married. She gets too impressed by Val and develops an amicable relationship with him. At heart, she loves and desires Val. Caroline starts feeling jealous of Annabel and tries to create differences between them. Meanwhile, Val meets another British girl Ellie, a twenty-year-old Jewish girl who has suffered the cruelty of Nazis in the camp. She is raped there almost every night. She is an orphan, helpless, suppressed, and battered in body and soul by the Germans during the Second world war. She is physically maimed and is emotionally so bruised that despite the daily raping that she had been subjected to as a war prisoner, she has lost her fertility. Observing her sadness, Val sympathizes with her and soon he starts feeling true genuine love for her. Ellie too starts feeling secure with Val. Caroline cannot bear Ellie’s presence near Val but she cannot stop them as Ellie genuinely becomes an inspiration for Val in his art. Val indulges in Ellie so much that she becomes pregnant with his child. Caroline informs Annabel about Valmiki's illicit relationship with Ellie and thus, she succeeds in keeping Annabel away from Val.

Caroline again conspires to repossess Val only for herself. She exposes him in his next phase of training to her affluent society and gives him an education in its language and in its value, he learns all that avidly. Becoming a fashionable man, he gradually loses patience with Ellie’s incurable inelegance. Caroline manages things with consummate shrewdness and she makes the poor girl feel alien in the atmosphere, and she brings about the desertion of Ellie from society. Being marginalized and humiliated, Ellie decides to run away. Caroline does not reveal Ellie’s whereabouts to Val and by the time he comes to know of it, Caroline has sufficiently lulled him so thoroughly that she instinctively feels relieved that he is not burdened by the responsibility of Ellie and her child. However, Caroline fails to keep Val under her control again and again as he becomes more popular and meets many important people in society while making relationships with many women. Val is completely different from Valmiki, the young innocent spiritual goatherd boy of an Indian village, he is a shrewd modern British man.

Meanwhile, Swami gets a chance to visit London. When Val’s guru visits England and he reminds him in his unobtrusive way of the values that he stands for and the differences between Val’s new values and his original ones. Valmiki realizes how he has been duped. Caroline is very much disturbed by Swami’s presence in England because his spiritual effect on Val is a threat to her plan of physical and materialistic possession of human beings. She wants to control Val not only physically but mentally as well which is why she wants to send Swami back to India. From the very beginning, she is aware of the fact that Valmiki is deeply influenced by Swami. She is very eager to possess Val and to do so she seduces him into an almost incestuous carnal alignment despite the wide difference between their ages.

Meanwhile, Val discovers the forged letter and also Caroline’s selfish motives behind Ellie’s disappearance. He tries to relocate her but fails. At last, he decides to save his art and his inner integrity. Once that decision is taken, he behaves with a singularity of purpose, fights free of Caroline, and sails back home. Caroline still doesn’t accept defeat and follows Valmiki back to India

to regain him but Valmiki denies it as he does not want to be possessed by her again.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the History of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

Drapier’s Letters by Jonathan Swit | Structure, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. While Jonathan Swift’s both parents were British, he took birth in Dublin, Ireland, and for a long period, he worked in Dublin as the Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. No wonder he had strong feelings for the autonomy of Ireland while British colonialist colonial restrictions on Ireland’s economy were proving to be harmful to the common Irish people. During the same time, a British entrepreneur William Wood who owned copper and iron works throughout Britain, obtained a patent from the Crown in July 1722 to mint more than £100,000 of copper halfpence for Ireland over fourteen years. William Wood was considered to be close to Walpole who was known for venality and corruption. Irish people noticed that there were no safeguards to ensure the value of the coins and they believes that William Wood had his patent through government bribery and corruption. Jonathan Swift was the Dean of the Cathedral at that time and he became the voice of the Irish people.

Jonathan Swift took charge of raising Irish people’s concerns systematically and to do so, he chose to acquire the pseudonym of M.B Drapier by which he published a series of 7 Pamphlets opposing the patent of William Wood. These pamphlets were mostly successful and resulted in the culmination of William Wood’s patent on his halfpence for Ireland in 1727.

Swift chose the pseudonym M.B. Drapier because he wished to avoid any political repercussions. He was a known Tory sympathizer while Walpole’s Whigs party was in power. Swift chose Drapier especially because it meant a skilled 'daper' representing a retailer or wholesaler. Swift wished the pseudonym to resemble a common Irish man and thus chose M. B. Drapier, a middle-class tradesman and cloth dealer (whose initials perhaps stand for “Marcus Brutus”.

Jonathan Swift published 7 letters or pamphlets related to the matter from March 1724 to June 1725. The first four letters were published by Thomas Harding who was then arrested by British forces and a bounty was announced for the head of M. B Drapier who had been declared a secessionist and fugitive. Everybody knew that the actual Drapier is Jonathan Swift but the Walpole government didn’t have any legal proof against him. Furthermore, Swift was a prominent Torie supporter who had the backing of Queen Anne. Hardin published Drapier’s fifth letter in December 1724 and then he died of illness. After that George Faulkner published two more pamphlets by Drapier in 1735.

Summary of Drapier’s Letters:

The First Pamphlet was titled To the Shop-keepers, Tradesmen, Farmers, and Common-People of Ireland and it was printed in March 1724. In April 1724, it was retitled and republished as "Fraud Detected: or, The Hibernian Patriot." In the pamphlet, Drapier deliberately tries to avoid voicing anything against the Monarch of Ireland or Britain but he does mention that "It is no treason to rebel against Mr. Wood.” In the pamphlet, Swift descriptively expressed how debased coins would cause silver and gold coinage to be hoarded or removed from Ireland which would further debase the currency. He further expresses his worries and says that tenant farmers would no longer be able to pay their landlords, and, after the tenants were removed, there would be fewer crops grown in Ireland; the increase in poverty and the decrease of food supply would completely ruin Ireland's economy. Drapier maintained that he is totally devoted to the British king as the leader and respects the Irish church, he asserted strong protest against William Wood.

The matter was such that could badly affect all the farmers, wholesalers, and petty grocers of Ireland and thus it touched the nerves of Irish people who gathered against Wood’s halfpence to protest.

The Second Pamphlet was titled A Letter to Mr. Harding the Printer, upon Occasion of a Paragraph in his News-Paper of Aug. 1st, Relating to Mr. Wood's Half-Pence and it was published on 4 April 1724. After the initial protests against Wood’s Half Pence, Prime Minister Walpole managed a Privy Council to check any corruption in the patenting and minting of copper coins. The Privy Council included Sir Issac Newton who was a respectful and trustworthy person. Drapier attacked the report of the Privy Council without maligning Sir Issac Newton and suggested how Issac Newton was misguided in believing that the halfpence include no fraud. Swift directly attacked the Whigs Party headed by Walpole in this second pamphlet because the Privy Council was headed by Walpole. In this pamphlet, Swift succeeded in establishing that the report of the Privy Council is nothing but propaganda to hide the corruption behind Wood’s coin patent. However, Swift chose to remain extra cautious to avoid inciting the ire of the king because the king himself issued the legal tender for minting the coins. He maintains that he is truly loyal to the monarch but cannot trust Wood’s tricks. He maintained that though it is the King’s Prerogative to issue the legal tender, but the king cannot force his people to accept any copper-based currency. To support his point, Drapier mentioned the Irish constitution which limits the Monarch’s power and forces the people of Ireland to use only gold or silver coins as official currency. This second pamphlet by M.B. Drapier further gathered support from all the bankers of Ireland who announced that they won't accept copper halfpence.

The Third Pamphlet was titled To the Nobility and Gentry of the Kingdom of Ireland: Some Observations Upon a Paper, Call'd, The Report of the Committee of the Most Honourable the Privy-Council in England relating to Wood's Half-pence, and it was printed on 25 August 1724. In this pamphlet too, Drapier continued to oppose the report of the Privy Council which was still making rounds in power galleries. In this pamphlet, Drapier directly accused Walpole of trying to defend his fraudulent practices at the expense of the poor people of Ireland by misusing the respectful Privy Council. Furthermore, Drapier didn’t attack the minting of Walpole’s coin in England but he limited his attack on Wood’s patent for half pence to be issued in Ireland.

The Fourth Pamphlet was titled To the Whole People of Ireland, A Word or Two to the People of Ireland, A Short Defense of the People of Ireland and it was published on 21 October 1724. This letter proved to be the most important pamphlet of the whole series which established Jonathan Swift as the "Hibernian patriot" of Ireland. He became the Darling of the Irish people who compared him to David fighting against Goliath. The Archbishop of Ireland nicknamed Jonathan Swift "Our Irish Copper-Farthen Dean." In this pamphlet, M.B. Drapier openly called for the independence of the Irish people. However, he maintained the Irish deserve to be granted independence from British control but not King George II. What Swift meant was that though the Irish people have a divine duty to be loyal to the monarch, they cannot be forced to accept the authority of the British Parliament. Jonathan Swift was a known Tori supporter and this fresh assault and accusation against the Whigs government incited Walpole’s ire who immediately ordered the arrest of the publisher of these pamphlets and a death sentence to the author. Everybody knew Jonathan Swift is the actual author but there was no legal proof to establish it.

The Fifth pamphlet was titled A Letter To the Honourable the Lord Viscount Molesworth, at his House at Brackdenstown, near Swords and it was published on 31 December 1724. The Walpole government had indicated its willingness to take back the patent of Wood’s halfpence after the publication of the fourth letter. Yet, Drapoer wanted to ascertain that Walpole would not back down from his promise of removing the patent. In this letter, he expressed the whole scenario as his defense against the Walpole Government’s charges of treason in front of the Irish people. He called for more support for the Irish cause; he sought more attention so that the greater liberty of Ireland would be respected. In the letter, Drapier expressed himself as a common Irish man who is and always will be on the correct side of the argument.

The Sixth Pamphlet was titled To the Lord Chancellor Middleton and was published on 26 October 1724. Swift wrote it and published it with the help of George Faulkner but he didn’t publish it by the pseudonym of M.B. Drapier. It was anonymously written in which the author asserted that Lord Chancellor Middleton will maintain his opposition to Wood’s coin patent. Middleton himself was an opponent of Wood’s halfpence and always maintained that it will harm the Irish people.

The Seventh Pamphlet was titled An Humble Address to Both Houses of Parliament and was written in June 1725 but was not published. Drapier wrote it before the culmination of Wood’s patent. But Jonathan Swift got the affirming news of the cancellation of the patent before he could publish this seventh pamphlet and thus, he didn’t publish the pamphlet then. However, it was published after 10 years. In this pamphlet, Drapier asked the British parliament to check how Wood’s patent was accepted in the first place while it was a known fact that he used bribery to attain that.

These letters by Drapier proved to be influential enough to force the Walpole government to take back their decision to grant the patent for William Wood’s halfpence.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

Ezra Pound | In a Station of a Metro and other works

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Ezra Pound was an American expatriate poet and literary critic who was born in 1885 in Harley, Idaho and he died in 1972. While Modernism and Free verse were becoming vogue in the American literary scenario of his time, he was more interested in classical poetry and often criticized the early Modernist movement in America. In 1908, Ezra moved to Spain where he self-published his first poetry collection titled A Lume Spento (With Tapers Quenched) in Venice. He moved to London in the same year and he found that he couldn’t appreciate the verbose Victorian verses often used by Maurice Hewlett, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Tennyson, and others. Thus, Ezra Pound not only criticized early Modernist poetry but also criticized Victorian poetry too which he found stirring, pompous, and propagandistic. Ezra Pound believed that poetry is not a versified moral essay, rather, the purpose of poetry is to express the individual experience, the concrete rather than the abstract.

Ezra Pound famously commented

“Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, spheres, and the like, but equations for the human emotions. If one have a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite.”
Ezra Pound rejected the modernist approach of cubism and abstracts in poetry but he endorsed another modernist approach of Vorticism that he named himself and defined as extending imagism to art. Pound established himself as a huge proponent of Imagism in poetry. While many of his poems were published in Poetry Magazine and Blast, he was actively involved in establishing The Egoist a London-based literary magazine published from 1914 to 1919.

During his time in London, Pound became a close friend of W.B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Olivia Shakespeare. In 1910, Ezra Pound published his first book of literary criticism which was titled The Spirit of Romance in London. In 1912, he became the foreign correspondent of Poetry Magazine and in the same year, his collection of 25 poems titled Ripostes of Ezra Pound was published in London which also included a translation of The Seafarer, an Old-English poem from the 8^th century.

His other important work was The Cantos which is a long incomplete poem in 120 sections that he wrote during 1915-1962 which is often termed as the finest example of modern imagist poetry of the twentieth century. In The Cantos, Pound mentioned T. S. Eliot as Possum. He also mentioned his other friends including W. B Yeats, Wyndham Lewis, and A. R. Orage who was the editor of the socialist journal titled The New Age. T. S. Eliot also mentioned Ezra Pound and dedicated his famous work The Wasteland to Ezra Pound which was published in 1922. The Wasteland is considered the central force of the movement of modernist poetry in the twentieth century. Ezra Pound strenuously helped in editing and revisioning The Wasteland and T. S. Eliot mentioned him in The Wasteland as Il Migliore fabbro which means “the better craftsman,” a reference to Canto 26 of the Purgatorio of Dante’s The Divine Comedy.

Ezra Pound was influenced by Eastern poetic styles like Japanese haiku and he also translated 25 classical Chinese poems and published them under the title Cathay in 1915. His poem In a Station of the Metro which was published in 1913 in the literary magazine Poetry is considered to be the very first haiku published in English. Though this poem is not written in the traditional 3-line, 17-syllable structure of haiku, it does include strong imagery.

Structure of In a Station of the Metro:

The poem is just two lines long with only fourteen words. None of the words used by Ezra Pound is a verb and thus, it is an excellent example of verbless poetry form. Ezra Pound experimented in this poem to avoid the usual Pentameter and infuse the poem with strong visual spacing as a poetry device. The poem is written in free verse with no complete rhyme but an end slant rhyme. Ezra Pound used Assonance, Juxtaposition, Imagery, Parataxis, and Metaphor in these two lines.

Traditionally, a haiku focuses on a specific element of the natural world, using extremely concise and specific images to do so in a concise manner. Ezra Pound was a modernist poet who got inspiration from the Haiku style but didn’t copy it slavishly rather introduced his own originality. Thus while Pound linked images to express his emotions, he used only two lines with no verbs. He wrote the poem by combining two sentence fragments, each with a subject, but without an action, for that subject to perform. While the poem captures a moment, nothing happens during it and the poem appears as an observation. It appears as if the poet has taken two still photographs and positioned them side by side.

Summary of In a Station of the Metro:

“The apparition of these faces in a crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.”

The poem is an excellent example of imagism in which Pound rejected long, flowing poetic descriptions in favor of concise, precise images. An imagist poet considers the image itself as the best description of his emotions and thus, Pound expressed the images that he could envisage while observing the crowd in a metro station in Paris, France. The poet doesn’t reveal if he is a passenger traveling in the metro train standing at the metro station, or if he is standing at the station while waiting for his train to catch. The poet describes the faces of people that he observed at the station as a ‘crowd’ which suggests that the station was rather busy. He compares these faces to "petals on a wet, black bough," suggesting that on the dark subway platform, the people look like flower petals stuck on a tree branch after a rainy night.

As one can see, the two fragments of the poem do not make any meaning when read alone. However, when we read it as a poem, we realize that metaphor has been used to compare the crowd surrounding a train standing on a station on both platforms with petals or leaves on a strong black, wet tree trunk.

The poem is astoundingly concise and short which necessitates the most proper words to be used. It contains only 14 words that exactly express the emotions and feelings of the poet when he observed the moment at the metro station, and that is the purpose of imagist poetry, In the first line, the poet used the word ‘apparition’ which suggests that the people in the crowd are in so much hurry that they are oblivious of each other as if all of them are dead or ghosts. Furthermore, while these faces in the crowd are visible to the observer right now at the station, once the train moves, all these faces will be gone and will likely never be visible again, just like ghosts. While the first line expresses a daily routine of the modern world, the second line introduces a completely natural and primal scene of a wet tree trunk, covered with leaves during rainfall. The second line suggests that despite being modern and completely artificial, the metro station does have a natural element that offers it natural beauty.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards

Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Kamala Markandaya is a pseudonym of Kamala Purnaiya, an Indian-British novelist and journalist who took birth on June 23, 1924, and died on 16^th May 2004. She belonged to an upper-caste Brahmin family in Mysore, Karnataka, and completed her graduation from Madras University. After independence, she moved to Britain and married there. She wrote many short stories and a good number of novels in English. Some of her finest works include Nectar in a Sieve, Possession, Some Inner Fury, A Handful of Rice, The Nowhere Man, and others. She was an Indian Expatriate novelist who extensively wrote Diasporic literature.

Diasporic Literature or Expatriate Literature is a wide concept and an umbrella term which associates with all those literary works written by authors who are away from their native country whereas these works are connected with native culture and background. Being an Indian Diasporic author, Kamala Markandaya kept her relationship strongly with the ancestral land. There is

a search for connectivity and ‘ancestral impulse’ in her stories and novels, it is an effort to look for her roots. Her writings are ever symbolized boldness, identity, individuality, freedom, and against marginality.

Nectar in a Sieve was published in the year 1954 in which Kamala Markandaya depicted the fictional story of Rukmani, the youngest daughter of a village headman, and Nathan, a tenant farmer. The title of the novel was taken from the 1825 poem "Work Without Hope", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Kamala Markanday also added a couplet from the poem as the epigraph of the novel.

“Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,

And hope without an object cannot live.”

Characters of Nectar in a Sieve:

 Rukmani is the protagonist of the novel. She got married to Nathan, a poor tenant farmer at an age of 12. Nathan is her husband who is a kind, gentle and hardworking farmer.  Nathan is a surprisingly patient and caring husband who takes care of his newlywed wife who is still a child at the time of their marriage. He continues to respect and love Rukmani throughout his life though he commits infidelity with one of their neighbors. Irawwadi or Ira eldest child and only daughter of Nathan and Rukmani. When Irrawaddy is born, Rukmani is disappointed because Nathan needs sons who can help him work the land. Rukamni struggles to become a mother again but she gets help from a British doctor Kenny who lives and works in the village. Rukmani first meets Kenny at her dying mother’s bedside, and she seeks treatment from him for infertility. Kenny is a good and kind doctor who helps Kenny without letting her husband know. He further helps Rukmani when her daughter Ira also fails to conceive after many years of her marriage and is thrown out of her home by her husband for being barren. Kunthi is one of the neighbors of Rukmani she is arrogant because she belongs to a rich family and she is strikingly beautiful. However, she is jealous of Rukmani mainly because she has an illicit relationship with Nathan. Kunthi is always rude and insolent to Rukmani. Arjun is Rukmani’s eldest son and Thambi is her second son. Nathan hopes that his wons will help him in farming but they reject the idea and start working for the new tannery established in the village.  Arjun decides to leave home to work on a tea plantation in Ceylon. Murugan is Rukmani’s third son. Murugan moves to a large city to work as a servant and eventually marries a woman named Ammu who also works there. Selvam is Rukmani’s fourth son, his fifth child. He starts helping Doctor Kenny at his hospital which trains him in medical practice. Kuti is Rukmani’s youngest son who dies at an early age. Puli is a street child whom Rukmani and Nathan meet in the city. Puli is homeless and his fingers have rotten away because of leprosy. Rukami adopts him and takes care of him. Janaki and Kali are two other neighbors of Rukmani who have a cordial relationship with her.

Summary of Nectar in Sieve:

 The novel is presented in first person narrative style from the point of view of Rukmani who is the protagonist. The novel begins as Rukami is sitting beside her adopted son Puli as they see the hospital building where her son Selan works as a medical assistant. Rukamni then remembers her past. She still misses her dead husband whom she loved dearly. Rukmani was the youngest daughter of a village headman who was the strongest man in her village. However, as the British colonialists controlled all the systems, his father lost all the power and money and by the time of her marriage, he was a poor man. She was married at the early age of 12 to a hard-working farmer named Nathan. Nathan was a kind and compassionate man who respected Rukmani and treated her well. Soon she settled into her married life and gave birth to a daughter whom they named Irawwdy or Ira. Ira was a beautiful child and her birth also heralds a bumper crop of rice. Thus, she becomes dear to Nathan. However, Rukmani wished to have a son who could help Nathan in the field. Thus, she tried to conceive again but failed for many years. After six years of the birth of Ira, Rukmani visits her village to see her bedridden ill mother where he meets Doctor Kenny. She asks for his help in getting rid of her infertility and without informing her husband Nathan about it, she starts Doctor Kenny’s medication. Soon she becomes pregnant and delivers five sons in a short period. However, more mouths require more food and resources. Nathan used to work as a tenant farmer who hoped to have his own land one day in the future. But the increasing spending and burden of six children don’t allow him to save enough money to buy his own land. Soon the family finds it difficult to earn enough to make ends meet. Shortly after the birth of their third and fourth son, a tannery is established in the village that further deteriorates the farming lands and fills the atmosphere with a noxious odor. Nathan fails to earn enough through farming and soon his two eldest sons Arjun and Thambi decide to start working in the tannery to earn enough. Nathan is very sad about their decision because he hoped his sons to help him in farming so that they could buy their own land. However, he realizes that the earnings of Arjun and Thambi from the tannery are improving the financial conditions of their home.

Arjun and Thambi observe very difficult working conditions at the tannery and they organize a strike of workers for which they get terminated from their jobs which further pushes Rukmani’s family into financial trouble. Rukmani’s eldest daughter Ira is now a young beautiful girl of marrying age but Nathan and Rukmani don’t have enough money for her marriage. Somehow, they arrange her marriage to a farmer in a nearby village. Nathan continues to work as a farmer while Arjun decides to leave home to work on a tea plantation in Ceylon. Rukmani’s fourth son Selvan was still a kid when the monsoon season came early and brought heavy floods that destroyed the crops of Nathan. The family’s troubles further increased when Ira’s husband returned Ira to her parent's home and blamed her for being barren and infertile. Rukami again reaches Doctor Kenny to help her daughter out and Kenny starts treating Ira but before she could be treated, her husband decides to remarry another woman. To increase the troubles more, Rukmani herself becomes pregnant again and soon gives birth to Kuti, her sixth child, and fifth son. The birth of Kuti helps Ira as she engages herself as a surrogate mother. She loves Kuti as her own child and starts feeling hope and joy toward life again.

Famine strikes their village once again and it becomes very difficult for Rukmani’s family to survive.To make things worse, the owner of their farmland asks for the rent urgency or to leave his farm. Nathan and Rukmani decide to sell all their belonging to pay the loans and rent of the landowner but they fail to pay all the loans back. However, this turns them totally destitute, relegated to scavenging for herbs and edible plants slowly starving to death. Rukmani once again goes to Doctor Kenny to ask for help who arranges for a job for Rukmani’s fourth son Murugan in the city. Murugan goes away and starts working in the city as a servant and soon he marries a girl named Ammu there without taking permission from his parents. Meanwhile, Rukmani and Nathan continue to face financial troubles. Kuti gets ill as he is malnourished. Ira gets too worried about Kuti and she decides to turn into a prostitute to get enough money to save Kuti’s life. However, despite her turning towards the ill profession of prostitution, Ira and Rukmani fail to save Kuti who dies. Thambi is still jobless and frustrated. One day, he decides to steal some catskin from the tannery and start his own work but he gets caught and is killed by the guards. Nathan succeeds in getting a bumper rice crop that year but it is too late as Rukmani has already lost two of her sons. While Rukmani is still mourning the loss of her sons, Doctor Kenny reappears in her village with a good amount of funds to establish a new hospital in Rukmani’s village. He again proves to be a vital help as he engages Selvan, Rukmani’s youngest son as a medical assistant in his hospital and starts training him. Meanwhile, Kunthi is jealous of Rukmani. Kunthi is a beautiful woman who lives in the neighborhood. Nathan had an illicit relationship with her even before his marriage and since Rukmani was still a child when he married her, he continued to sleep with Kunthi. Kunthi, being jealous of Rukmani starts spreading rumors about the illicit relationship between Rukmani and Doctor Kenny. Her other neighbors Janaki and Kali also help her with this. However, Nathan rejects these rumors, rather he confesses to Rukmani and Ira that he used to have an illicit relationship with Kunthi and he fathered two of her sons. Rukmani chooses to forgive Nathan rather than hold a grudge. Nathan is fifty years old now but he still has to work hard in fields that are not even his own. One day, he is informed that he has to leave his farm and home because the landowner has sold the farm to the tannery owner. The situation gets worse as they come to know that Ira is pregnant as a result of her working as a prostitute. Ira soon gives birth to an albino child. Nathan and Rukmani decide to go to the city to take the help of Murugan while Ira, her child stays in the village with Selvan who is working in Doctor Kenny’s hospital.

In the city, Rukmani and Nathan fail to find the home where Murugan is working as a servant. At last, they take refuge at a temple but soon find that all their belongings and money have been stolen by miscreants. While Nathan is very desperate, a child named Puli helps Rukmani and Nathan to locate the address of Murugan. Rukmani pitties Puli because he is a homeless child suffering from Leprosy. She decides to take Puli with her and help him in getting proper treatment. When Nathan and Rukmani visit the house where Murugan is supposedly working as a servant, they find Ammu, the girl whom Murugan married. Ammu is with a newly born child. She informs Rukmani that Murugan left the job and her too many months ago. Rukmani realizes that if Murugan has left Ammu so many months ago, then her child could not be Murugan’s child. They decide to return to the temple. Nathan starts working as a laborer in a nearby stone quarry to gather enough money to return to the village. However, Nathan gets ill and one day, he suffers heartache while working in the stone quarry. He is soon taken to the temple where he dies in the arms of Rukmani. After performing his last rites, Rukmani decides to return to the village but she wishes to take Puli with her. She promises a better life and treatment of Puli as she believes that Doctor Kenny and Selvam will treat Puli well. Puli agrees to come with Rukmani. When they reach the village, Selvan and Ira greet them well. The siblings openly accept Puli and Ira hurries away to prepare dinner for their mother and a new brother.  Selvam reassures his mother that they will survive. Puli is happy as he observes Ira’s albino child. He is hopeful and optimistic as he finds nectar in a sieve.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of Indian English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

A Journal to Stella | Stella’s Birthday by Jonathan Swift | Structure, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. A Journal to Stella was a series of 65 letters written by Jonathan Swift during the period 1710-1713. He wrote these letters for Esther Johnson, the young, eight-year-old daughter of the widowed maid of Sir William Temple’s sister. Swift was appointed as an assistant by William Temple and he was given the charge of tutoring Esther whom he used to call Stella. Jonathan Swift developed a strong lifelong attachment to Stella. In these letters, Jonathan Swift often wrote his views on eminent people as well as reflective, often humorous descriptions of important incidences and personalities along with warm, affectionate personal messages. A Journal to Stella is a detailed commentary on Swift's experiences in London in the last years of Queen Anne's reign, It was believed that Jonathan Swift was in love with Stella and wished to marry her but avoided it because while he was just 14 years old, Esther was only 8 years old. The two maintained a close but ambiguous relationship for the rest of Esther's life who died in 1728.

Swift used to write a poem to celebrate Stella’s birthday on March 13, every year. He wrote the first poem in 1713 and in 1727, he wrote the last such poem for celebrating her birthday.

Structure of Stella’s Birthday, 1727:

The poem is written in iambic tetrameter with 88 lines composed in 44 rhyming couplets. The poem is rather long with 6 stanzas of varied lengths (14,4,16,32,23,). Swift wrote it in epistle form though it appears like a sonnet. Swift deliberately avoided using imagery as he was addressing the ill health and troubles of Stella during her last days however, he used metaphors in one or two instances. Swift says that Virtues in Stella’s life were like “nutriment that feeds the mind.” Swift also used personification of ‘Virtue’ by equating virtue to the Roman god Janus the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings, having two heads, one looking forward and one backward.

Summary of On Stella’s Birthday, 1727:

The poem offers the genuine friendly concern of Jonathan Swift for his close friend Esther who was terminally ill at that time. Swift continues to ignore the probable death of Stella while trying to infuse the poem with merrier, celebratory thoughts as he wishes Stella to cherish her birthday, he does accept the likelihood of her death at the end of the poem. The poem is a tribute to Stella in which Swift expresses how important she was to him. He says that she brought him joy and sorrow, ups and downs and she remained as an inspiring figure in his heart that will always remain there even if death sets them apart.

Stanza 1 (Lines 1-14)

Swift begins the poem by acknowledging Stella’s ill health and his own aging troubles yet asserts that it is the day to celebrate her birthday and they should cherish it with utmost excitement. He says that they should “not think on our approaching ills,” and should avoid the “talk of spectacles and pills” as their ailments and worries can be discussed later sometime or tomorrow. The poet says that reason suggests that despite their declining, decaying days, they should cherish the immense beauty of very few days remaining of their life.

Stanza 2 (Lines 15-18)

In these lines, Swift accepts that neither he, nor Stella is in such an age where they could dream and plan for the future as they are already at a stable stage of life and are declining, but even this decay of health and life has its own beauty and they do have all the beauty and tastes of the past that they cherished together. The poet requests Stella not to dwell on present miseries but rather to take comfort from having lived an unblemished life. In line 18, he urges Stella to “look with joy on what is past.”

Stanza 3 (Lines 19-34)

In these lines, the poet questions if the dreams and plans of the past that they had for a comfortable and cherishable future were all false? Were those hopes nothing more than the ‘contrivances’ of the vice that atheists say religious people use to proselytize? He further says that even if it is true, the message of sages cannot be wrong and virtue always offers its reward. Although Swift seeks throughout the poem to cheer his ailing friend by recalling her past acts of generosity and compassion, he also attempts to assuage his own pain at the possibility that she is dying.

Stanza 4 (Lines 35-66)

Swift expresses the importance Stella always had in his life. He asserts that Stella lives a meaningful well-spent life and asks her if she is not content with her past. He appreciates her and says that she always remained ready to help the needy and could save the ‘despairing wretches from the grave.’ he mentions how Stella always supported him and stood with him in highs and lows.

Your gen'rous boldness to defend

An innocent and absent friend;

Then Swift brings the metaphor comparing virtues as nutrients for the mind. He says,

Does not the body thrive and grow / By food of twenty years ago?

And, had it not been still supplied,v / It must a thousand times have died.

Then who with reason can maintain / That no effects of food remain?

Swift says that true virtue has a permanence that remains forever. He asserts that Stella was a lady of integrity and virtues not only nourish the person with virtues but also everyone else who comes in contact with that person and thus, Stella’s virtues nourished him too. In these lines, Swift shows his pain in losing a friend whom he considered a marvelous human being

Stanza 5 (Lines 67-78)

In these lines, Stanza again beseeches Stella not to worry about her current miseries. The poet gently encourages her not to dwell on the bleakness of the future but rather to derive satisfaction from a lifetime of virtuous achievement. He compares Virtues with Janus, the Roman god, and thus uses personification. He suggests that virtues are divine like Roman god Janus with two faces. One of the faces is for looking back at Stella’s colorful and happy past which will continue to make Stella feel content, and the other takes Stella forward toward fate with courage.

For Virtue, in her daily race,

Like Janus, bears a double face;

Looks back with joy where she has gone

And therefore goes with courage on:

She at your sickly couch will wait,

And guide you to a better state.

Stanza 6 (Lines 79-88)

Swift continued to encourage Stella to forget about her ill health and troubles but in the last stanza, he concedes that she is going to die and he is very sad about the situation. He tells her to have pity on her pitied friends who, like himself, will suffer most from losing her: “O then, whatever Heav’n intends,/ Take pity on your pitying friends!/ Nor let your ills affect your mind,/ To fancy they can be unkind.” He asserts that not of Stella’s friends, especially him, is unkind as all of them are worried and concerned for her. In the last lines, he says that he would gladly take Stella’s position if given a chance to face death while gifting his remaining life for Stella. He further says that if such a sacrifice is possible, it will still be much lesser than what she has done for her. He says that he owes Stella’s care so much that if he is alive for this moment, it is only because of her.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

The Snowman by Wallace Stevens | Structure, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Snowman is a philosophical poem written by Wallace Stevens that was first published in Poetry magazine in 1921 and then incorporated into his influential poetry collection Harmonium published in 1923. It is a short poem consisting of 15 lines composed in five tercets or stanzas of three lines. The poem is written in free verse. Most of the lines are written in iambic though the meter varies. The poem has internal rhymes and slant rhymes to maintain the flow. The poem uses imagery, metaphor, metonymy, anaphora, repetition, enjambment, alliteration, and epigram.

Themes of The Snowman:

It is a philosophical poem that challenges the very concept of reality versus perspectivism; objectivity and subjectivism. The poet explains the necessity of objectively observing a cold winter landscape or anything in the world. He stresses that to observe reality, one must be free of all biases, perspectives, and prior conceptions. But once a person is free of all these biases, he will find nothingness. Then the poet questions if it is possible to get rid of all perspectives? He suggests that everything is subjective – there can be no objective experience of the world. Thus, we can adjust our own perception to have a better illusion or subjective reality of the circumstances. Another important theme of the poem is natural unity, or oneness, or non-duality. If a person can get rid of all possible perspectives, he will observe nothingness and that nothingness lies in oneness with nature, there won’t be anything, any difference if one can perceive things just like nature. Yet again, it will be a perception.

Summary of The Snowman:

Stanza 1

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

The poem begins with ‘One’ as a substitute for ‘I’ or ‘He’ which suggests that it is not about an individual’s experience rather, it talks about everyone. And that everyone is the snowman. The poet is talking about hypothetical winter and a hypothetical snowman to explain deeper meanings of reality. ‘One must’, makes it imperative, necessary condition for a person to ‘have a mind of winter’ to actually understand the reality of frost and the boughs of the pine trees laden with snow. ‘Mind of winter’ is a metaphor that suggests the serenity and detachment of an impartial calm mind. To understand reality, one must one’s mind must be immune to the dramas, emotions, and chaos of the world. To have the mind of winter, one must not be affected or frightened by it.

Stanza 2

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

The poet continues to explain the snowman and says that not only the mind must be serene and calm before one may understand reality, one must be in this calm state for a long time with no disturbing memories of chaos. The poet uses cold as a metonym for serenity, and peacefulness. One must be cold or serene for long to be like junipers, the shrub whose leaves always remain green irrespective of how cold it is. Just like Junipers remain unaffected by winter, one must have the ‘mind of winter’ for a long to face the reality.

Stanza 3

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

In the third stanza, the poet further explains the meaning of having a ‘mind of winter’ or being cold. The poet has used enjambment in the first line. A calm and peaceful mind remains unaffected by the warmth of the sun and the harshness of the cold wind alike. Neither excitement nor a sorrowful shock can affect a serene mind. Only if one is in such a balanced state of mind then only they can one cherish the cold, sunny, January day, and not think of “any misery” in the sounds made by the wind or that of a few leaves. If a mind is not peaceful, then the warm memories of the past may make them feel difficult, or, they will be disturbed by the harsh wind flowing and making harrowing sounds. One must be unaffected by pleasure and pain alike. One's mind must be empty of their own human perceptions if they have to experience the reality of nature. If one doesn’t have the mind of winter, they won’t be able to avoid ‘any misery’ in the wind or in their own life in general to affect their perception of reality.

Stanza 4

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

In this stanza, the poet further explains the ‘sound of the wind’ that must not be personified. It is the sound of land, it cannot be miser or harsh. The poet suggests that personification should be avoided. Instead of giving false human emotions of the natural world, one must get rid of their own human perceptions and be like nature with the ‘mind of winter’ to avoid any mistake in observation. One must not project human misery onto the sounds of the world, but must observe it for what it is, that of “the sound of the land.” The ‘One’ is the snowman who can be anyone.

Stanza 5

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

In the last stanza, the poet clarifies what it takes to be a snowman, a snowman can be anyone, who can realize reality as it is, without any falsehood or artificiality. One must have a detached mind, free from the influences of society, and emotional and mental trauma, to observe the world and see the nothingness in the landscape around them for what it is, nothing.

As it is clear, the poem isn’t about the winter season or the snowman, rather it is about the reality of what one observes. The poet raises questions about how we perceive the world and if, what we perceive, is actually true. The poet suggests that to understand the truth of the world, one must be free of personal experiences, perceptions, and societal influences.

Such a person will be able to listen to the sound of the land for what it is. They will listen to the sound of the cold wind with the ‘mind of winter’ without maligning it with emotional language to color those sounds and then they will be able to realize what it is, it is nothing that can affect them. The observer beholds "nothing" in the final stanza because that is what remains without the human perceptions that we bring to the world. Thus, whatever we feel, we see, is the creation of our own human mind. Once we get rid of this habit of personification, then only will we be able to see the reality and that is nothingness. However, there is the paradox because how devoid of personal experiences one can be? The possibility of perceiving reality free from our individual subjectivity is impossible and even if one perceives reality sans any prior experience, any influence, it will again be a mere perception.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

The Chessmaster and His Moves by Raja Rao | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Raja Rao was an Indian-American writer who served as a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin from 1966 to 1983. He taught courses like Marxism to Gandhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Indian philosophy: The Upanishads, and Indian philosophy: The Metaphysical Basics of the Male and Female Principle. Raja Rao continued to explore similar realms in his novels which unfold his deeper concerns for man's spiritual existence on earth and sets his characters on a metaphysical quest for the Absolute. One such novel was The Chessmaster and His Moves which was published in the year 1988. It is a metaphysical novel. The Chessmaster mentioned in the title symbolizes the creator Brahma while the world is a board of Chess (a game that originated in India). His Moves symbolize the divine play that directs our lives. We as human beings are the pieces of the Chessboard that involve pawns, bishops, knights, kings, queens, and others. The narrator of the novel is a highly meditative person who in one instance says: “The stars, played games with us and behind the stars – He, the Chessmaster, rubbing his head in glee, he played for you, making you think he played for you, making you think he played for himself who is he anyway?”Again the narrator; gives the concept of the Chessmaster: “The Chessmaster’s moves, are so to say, subtle, magnanimous, sure. His hand is on your shoulder, not to tell you where to move, but to show the nature of the essential movement, and the movement itself is the play”

Characters of The Chessmaster and His Moves:

Sivaraman Shashtri is the protagonist of the novel. He is an Indian student of mathematics who falls in love with a Rajput princess Jayalakshmi during his teenage. However, he went off to France to study mathematics. Siva is a brilliant but spiritually shallow mathematician who tries to make a balance between European culture and Indian culture and to do so, he explores the relationship between Indian maths and Western maths along with exploring the similarities between Indian spirituality and Western religions. Jayalakshmi is an intelligent young woman who is a good match for Sivaraman but the two fail to marry. Surendra Singh is another childhood friend of Sivaraman and Jayalakshmi who too belongs to a royal family. The two royal families arrange their marriage but Jayalakshmi is not at all interested in Surendra Singh and they are not a happy couple. Uma Ramachandran is the married elder sister of Sivaraman who is unable to conceive a child and is very disturbed about it. Sivaraman is too much in love with Jayalakshmi but develops a relationship with

Suzanne Chantereux, a French actress apparently cured herself of tuberculosis with the help of yoga and meditation. She had a mentally retarded child who died at a young age. She is very much interested in the Indian philosophies of Advaita and Buddhism. This interest brings her closure to Sivaraman and they develop a romantic relationship. However, Suzzane wishes to use Indian philosophies to find peace and comfort in the materialistic world while Sivaraman pursues Moksha, freedom from the materialistic world. Jeanne Pierre is a friend of Sivaraman in France who is also researching mathematics. Mireille is the wife of Jeanne Pierre who develops an extramarital affair with Sivaraman. Despite his varied romantic flings with other women, Sivaraman continues to crave Jayalakshmi. Michel is a Jew, a Rabbi living in France who befriends Shivaraman.

Summary of The Chessmaster and His Moves:

Sivaraman is studying in France for his doctorate in mathematics. He is deeply influenced by Indian philosophies and so is mesmerized by Western ideas. Most often, he tries to balance the two different cultures by exploring the similarities and relations between Western mathematics and Indian mathematics. He would further try to explore relationships between Western philosophies and Indian philosophies. Despite his intellectual inclinations, he is spiritually hollow and yearns for his childhood love Jayalakshmi who is already married to one of his friends Surendra Singh. Meanwhile, he meets Suzanne Chantereux, a vivacious French actress interested in Indian culture and philosophies. Sivarama learns that Suzzane suffered from tuberculosis but she recuperated with the help of Yoga and meditation. Suzzane seeks solace and happiness through Indian ways of meditation as she is trying to cope with her loss of a young child who recently dies. However, her search for happiness is materialistic, and she fails to understand the concepts of non-dualism. Sivaraman develops a physical relationship with her and soon they create a strong romantic bond. However, Sivaraman is still dependent on Jayalakshmi for emotional fulfillment who is a close friend. Suzzane eventually starts pushing Sivaraman for marriage and a stable relationship while Sivaraman cannot think of marriage with anyone else but Jayalakshmi who is already married. Thus, Sivaraman starts maintaining distance from Suzanne.

Meanwhile, Sivaraman’s sister Uma visits him in France. She is facing troubles in conceiving a child and thus she seeks medical help in France. Sivaraman tries to find a balance between Indian medical practices and Western medical ideas. During the same time, Siavaraman develops a physical relationship with Mireille who is married to his friend Jeanne Pierre. During all these three relationships with Jayalakshi, Suzzane, and Mirielle, Sivaraman’s quest is for self-realization leading to a merging with Brahma the creator. However, Sivaraman continues to fail in finding peace within himself. Jayalakshmi to visits France for her medical treatment and when Sivaraman meets her, he fails to find any peace with her too. During his conversation with Jayalakshmi, he comes to know that her husband Surendra Singh is only interested in money and she has little interest in him but, for cultural and religious reasons, has to stay married to him. Furthermore, he realizes that Jayalakshmi is much more spiritually awakened and calm within herself. He realizes that the way to find solace is to search the shoonya within himself. He realizes that Shoonya is the Nirguna Bahman, neither good, nor evil, neither masculine nor feminine, devoid of any attributes and any conflicts. He realizes that his aim should be to be devoid of any dualities which denote lower order of reality. He remembers one of the sayings of his spiritual Guru “And I now know, in discrimination is wisdom, and knowledge, light that can see this light. There all doubts and all the jungle of the mind end. Pure as the Himalayan snow and unshakable, it tells us how, the Ganga is nothing but the snow melted by the sun and the wisdom not the stream, river, or sea (which it will reach), but just water; waves are nothing but water. So is the sea.” Ultimately, Sivaraman continues his path of self-realization as he strives for avoiding dualities and contradictions. During this phase, he meets Michel a Rabbi living in France. The two develop a deep friendship and often engage in debates while analyzing the nature of reality. Sivaraman realizes that all his earlier efforts in searching for balance in different cultures through Mathematics, religion, or philosophies were misplaced because this balance rests in the areas beyond the personal, the sensual, the mathematical, and towards the true universality of the Absolute. Sivaraman used to struggle to perceive the necessary abolition of contradiction, the movement beyond the tension of flesh and spirit, illusion and reality, immediate and eternal but now, he clearly sees the nonduality. The dialogue with Michael, the Rabbi, revolves around certain major themes invoked by Raja Rao's terms dual, non-dual, dissolution, zero, truth, and God and introduces the most important theme in The Chessmaster. Michelle and Sivaram try to explore the reasons for The Holocaust (the killing of millions of Jews by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s) and an attempt to expiate it during their discourse.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of Indian English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards.