welcome friends to week seven and this is
the first lecture of week seven although it
may be one of the you know one this is the
pen ultimate week for us this is an eight
week course english or literature in english
for competitive purposes we are already nap
and ultimate week and ah this week we are
going to devote to ah practicing and learning
something about indian writing in english
including ah and prose fiction novels poetry
and drama ah along with this with that there
we will be also some attention paid to ah
contemporary south asian as well as asian
writing in english ah see you can say ah you
can see that lets go is vast as usual and
i have been saying it from the very introductory
lecture that this course is meant for those
who already have a pre existing knowledge
of english literature who just want to do
this course in order to refresh and ah revise
and also practice
literary text ah and some knowledge of literary
movement so that they ah ah you know it is
it is meant to facilitate people who want
to appear for competitive exams so this is
not something that is going to start from
by scratch i will be for for example at some
stage i will be texting you on girish karnad
i need not tell you who girish karnad is yeah
at some stage i will be talking about ah or
testing you on a certain contemporary works
of fiction by indian writer so let's assume
ah amit choudhary or ah amitabh ghosh and
their works ah patent would be the same that
we have been doing so far you there will be
lot of practice test and that was the intention
of this course this course was definitely
not meant for those who have who know nothing
about english literature and who have joined
this course to learn about english literature
so having said that let's move on to the three
doyens of indian novels in english r k narayan
raja rao mulk raj anand r k narayan ah you
can see the dates here nineteen or six to
two thousand five is of course he doesn't
need any introduction a luminary ah leading
figure of early indian novel in english and
literature in english he is known for his
simplicity and he also is known he is also
known for creating that marvelous fictitious
village called malgudi just like what is contemporized
in america come particularly william faulkner
we have been talking about william faulkner
ah and the imaginary county that he had created
in his works
so likewise r k narayan simple writing skill
that style often compared to william faulkner
he is works include of course the guide is
preeminent its stand stall emits all works
anywhere in the world the bachelor of arts
the financial man the english teacher a tiger
from malgudi the darkroom mister sampath hm
man eater of malgudi so those are the ah some
of his best known best loved works truly a
man or a a novelist from india who is very
well respected and love throughout the world
his malgudi is a semi urban fictional town
in southern india and he sets most of his
stories there a a word about narayan he was
a ah reporter for a newspaper called the justice
and then in that mean time he send the manuscript
of swami and friends to his friend ah to one
of his friends at oxford university who in
turn showed it to ah the very renowned author
graham greene and greene help the book get
published
his ah ah narayan second novel was the bachelor
of arts ah it was based on his experiences
at college so partially autobiographical ah
in nineteen thirty eight narayan wrote his
third novel called the dark room with dealt
with the subject and it is for rather darkish
novel by narayan standards ok he see he is
a very pleasant writer to read but the dark
room has ah the subject of emotional abuse
within a marriage and that's what gives it
that dark and the current ah again he came
up with the english teacher which was more
autobiography than ah any of his prior no
novels and then he went on with mister sampath
the financial expert waiting for the mahatma
he wrote the guide in nineteen fifty six which
is his magnum opus and they he wrote it while
he was storing united ah the united states
the novel one him the sahitya academy award
in nineteen sixty one he wrote his next novel
called the man eater of malgudi with his an
immensely witty and satirical novel one has
to read and read the novel to understand what
i mean he wrote a mythological called gods
demons and others gods demons and others a
collection of short stories and ah his younger
brother r k laxman would often illustrate
his work and r l laxman again doesn't need
an introduction he was a famous cartoonist
in nineteen sixty seven narayan wrote the
vendor of sweets later on he was ah asked
by the government of karnataka to write a
book to promote tourism ah and then he wrote
above call the emerald route in nineteen eighty
the next great writer from the indian novel
tradition raja rao nineteen eight to two thousand
six kantapura the cows of the barricades comrade
kirillov k i r i double l o v the chess master
and his moves raj rao was born in the state
of karnataka he studied at aligarh muslim
university and also at nizams college hyderabad
at the age of nineteen he went to france ah
and he also studied at pre university of sorbonne
ah his first novel was kanthapura about a
village in south india which is affected by
ah the ideologies of mahatma gandhi this book
was published in the united states in nineteen
thirty eight and then his next great work
the serpent and the rope was published in
nineteen sixty in between he did a lot of
work including the cause of the barricades
which was of nineteen forty seven work in
the year of are independence the cat and shakespeare
comrade kirillov chess master and his moves
which was published in nineteen eighty eight
mulk raj anand who will between nineteen of
five and two thousand four he was born in
peshawar ah he is again a prominent indian
author of novels also short stories critical
essays in english generally he is referred
to as a founder of be english language indian
novels he studied at panjab university in
lahore and later at the university of cambridge
and also at university college in london ah
his novels include untouchable nineteen thirty
five and also coolly
now the he is one one writer who relentlessly
examine so that explodes the problems of poverty
in indian society other works include ah the
village the so[de]- and the sikkil and the
big he[art]- another thing that you should
know about mulk raj anand at that he is the
founder of marg and art quarterly magazine
which started from nineteen forty six and
then he also worked on a projected seven volume
autobiography ah autobiographical novel rather
which was called seven edges of man so these
are the three doyens of indian novels in english
we will be talking more about the novelists
perhaps you are ah more familiar with raise
the onwards including ah kiran desai arundhati
roy and amitabh ghosh amit choudhary so we
will be doing more of these novelas also but
i just wanted to kick start this week by giving
you a very very brief introduction to three
of the great masters we owe a lot to them
indian english ah indian writing in english
owes a lot to these three writers
ah again a word about the way we have been
preceding i know that is much more to all
the writers that we have been talking about
but the scope and intention of the course
was to help you practice with ah for your
exams so it's not that we are going to now
do an in depths study of each and every writer
and each and every work that we are going
to talk about rather the intention is that
you refresh and practice ah works you already
know and if in the course of the these practice
test you come across things you don't know
and it's about time that you get acquainted
with that so please don't confuse the objective
of the course with anything we are not doing
and analytical or ah an in depth kind of course
about literature
the scope of the work ah of the course has
been such that we have been doing so much
of work from all parts of the world with didn't
just do american writing or british writing
or classic gree greek writings we have done
almost everything in the last week we will
be doing world literature which will be heavily
ah dominated by european classics as well
as some works of american literature and other
parts of the world also let in america and
all but at the same we have to understand
that you cannot in a course like that you
cannot expect me to cover each and every area
is that that is get acquainted with what ah
it takes for ah young experience to appear
for a course or for for an exam of this nature
of competitive nature
lets move on to the first practice test today
look at this read the following india eighteen
fifty seven the ah the year of the great mutiny
when muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion
on their british overlords this time of convulsion
is the subject of j g farrells dash widely
considered one of the finest british novels
of the last fifty years farrells story is
set in an isolated victorian outpost on the
subcontinent rumors of strife filter in from
afar and yet the members of the colonial community
remain confident of their military and above
all moral superiority but when they find themselves
under actual siege the true character of their
dominion at once brutal blundering and wistful
is soon revealed dash is a companion to troubles
about the easter nineteen sixteen rebellion
in ireland and the singapore grip which takes
place just before ah the second world war
as the sun begins to set upon the british
empire together these three novels offer an
unequaled picture of the follies of empire
identify the novel a the untouchable b the
siege of krishnapur c a flight of pigeons
d twilight in delhi read the following velayudhans
nair says man we go to the doctor velayudhan
nair always begin every sentence with man
for he had been to bombay in colaba every
de souza says man this they learned from the
p and o ships and p and o ships touch plymouth
do they say man there one wonders so man we
go to the doctor he repeated mister man i
come said govindan nair he sometimes used
mister to show he too could be elegant he
called his son mister shridhar mister shridhar
go and get me a chew mister shridhar the thing
that father puffs is wanted etcetera etcetera
mister shridhar therefore brought the chew
tobacco or that which father puffs according
to orders
identify the novel a the serpent and the rope
b the man eater of malgudi c a backward place
d the cat and shakespeare identify the novel
now here r k narayan tells the story of a
spoilt young man called sriram who is an orphan
being taken care of by his grandmother his
life process in an aimless manner till a young
girl bharati accosts him for a donation she
turns out to be a worker in gandhi's camp
as discovered by sriram when he follows her
which novel of r k narayan a waiting for the
mahatma b waiting for gandhi c waiting for
mahatma gandhi d freedom at midnight number
four identify the writer mister morris see
this is the play we visited japan ah we just
loved japan my wife and i great place japan
so we thought why not india this year another
great place i have got this magazine see it
could be sold here to your people back in
the states its popular millions of copies
are sold you have a big population don't you
professor shah five hundred million people
mister morris five hundred million christ
takes your breath away doesn't it the professor
shah it takes our breath away mister morris
we can hardly breathe who is be a writer a
manju kapur b nissim ezekiel c a k ramanujan
d ruskin bond read the following excerpt from
uppum may he sit still they said may the sins
of your previous birth be burned away tonight
they said may your suffering decrease the
misfortune's of your next birth they said
may the sum of all evil balanced in this unreal
world against the sum of good become diminished
by your pain may the poison purify your flesh
answer the following who is suffering in the
poem its a very well known poem a the poet's
wife b the poet sister c his mother d his
daughter
number six what is the cause of a suffering
a a snakebite b a scorpion bite c a mysterious
disease d poisonous medication number seven
the poet is also the author of a the unfinished
man b delhi a novel c the vermilion boat d
nectar in a sieve now say again where we are
what i am trying to get it you may not be
aware of any one of these works all these
works are extremely important if you don't
know for some reason you haven't been taught
this works ah in your institution in your
college then don't get nervous just look these
works up in this day of the internet everything
is available you just need a facilitator and
a guide once a little bit of self motivation
to learn more about these works ok so if you
do if you don't know these wo ah works or
any of these novels or any of these poems
is not a problem don't expect the course instructor
to tell you in a give your information about
each one of it please look them up do your
own research that's what i have been telling
you all this while
number eight identify the work after leaving
all my life in my own country india and being
very much of a home keeping person even there
i went abroad for the first time at the age
of fifty seven it was in these spring of nineteen
fifty five that i have paid a short visit
of five weeks to england rounding it off with
two weeks in paris and one in rome as it happened
on the day i boarded the aeroplane for england
i was exactly two thousand nine ninety two
weeks old and i spent e eight weeks outside
my country thus completing a round three thousand
week span by the time i returned to delhi
a india from midnight to the millennium b
truth love and a little malice c a passage
to england d the discovery of india number
nine the work belongs to the genre of a sci
fi b travelogue c self help d spirituality
number ten this all this author that we whose
pacifier just seen the author also write wrote
a the foreigner b crossing of rivers c the
private life of indian prince d autobiography
of an unknown indian number eleven read the
following my mothers parents were both doctors
and roman catholics my paternal grandfather
was an engineer and a roman catholic too but
the hindu caste system of their forefathers
had worked on indian catholics over the years
splitting them into communities and my parents
families came from different catholic communities
a great deal of fuss ensued but in nineteen
thirty seven my parents married and on july
nineteen th nineteen thirty eight i was born
who is this right so a the work is from letters
from europe b my son's father c the nowhere
man d my dateless diary number twelve this
author also wrote a never at home b the strange
case of billy biswas c across the black waters
d the apprentice
all these are extremely well known works of
indian writing in english please look them
up number thirteen ah this is a commentary
on a work the first work to employ rigmarole
english a mishmash of indian rhythms and english
propriety the protagonist is part malay part
anglo one of his description includes my poor
taste compliment as to his sister and his
vulgar return tribute abuse as to my mother
absolutely established cordial relations between
us both in the e minor and the d major so
to speak
identify the novel a a house for mister biswas
b midnights children c all about h hatterr
the voices in the city number fourteen this
work that we have the same rigmarole english
the work had an tntroduction by a james joyce
b simone de beauvoir a anthony burgess d george
orwell next one read the following the collection
of poems describes a day trip to a pilgrimage
town in maharashtra both devotion and commercialism
populate the town and the man we follow doesn't
search for enlightenment he is sightseeing
identify the poet a dilip chitre b humayun
kabir c keki n daruwalla d arun kolatkar number
sixteen read the following the normal tells
the story of the partition of india through
the eyes of young lenny a parsee girl growing
up in lahore
lenny narrates the events of her family and
native lahore over more than a t ten year
period from the before second world war to
just after indian independence and the partition
identify the novel a train to pakistan b cracking
india c autobiography of an unknown indian
d clear light of day number seventeen the
novel belongs to the genre of spiritual gothic
partition romantic number eighteen identify
the novel here deven earns a living by teaching
hindi literature to uninterested colleges
students as his true interests lies true interest
lie in urdu poetry he jumps at the chance
to meet the great urdu poet nur under the
advice of his friend murad an editor of a
periodical devoted to urdu literature deven
procures a secondhand tape record tape recorders
so that he can help transcribe urdu's early
poetry as we ass conduct an interview or even
write the memoirs of nur however things do
not happen as he expects them to identify
the novel a in custody b that long silence
c shame d sunlight on a broken column and
here are the answers you can take a look at
the answers please look at the slide the first
one is b the siege of krishnapur by j g farrell
number two is d the cat and shakespeare by
raja rao number three is a waiting for the
mahatma by r k narayan number four is b nissim
ezekiels the sleepwalkers number five a c
his mother the night of he is taken from the
night of by scorpion by nissim ezekiel number
six b the writers mother suffers from a scorpion
bite number ah the poem itself is called the
night of the scorpion number seven is a the
unfinished man by nissim ezekiel number eight
a c a passage to england by nirad c chaudhuri
and it belongs to the genre of travelogue
so nine d number ten is d nirad c chaudhuri
also wrote autobiography of an unknown indian
number eleven is b my son's father by dom
moraes number twelve is a never at home number
thirteen is c all about h hatterr by g v desani
number fourteen is c anthony burgess number
fifteen is d arun kolatkars jejuri the collection
of poems number sixteen is b cracking india
also known as the ice candy man strictly speaking
not an indian writing a novel in english but
from the subcontinent number seventeen is
partition literature and number eighteen is
a in custody by anita desai so
thank you very much we will continue with
more on indian novels indian poetry and in
particularly indian theatre in our next class
