Gun Island

Hello Monks...

I am Riddhi Bhatt. Today I want to talk about  "Gun Island" by Amitav Ghosh. This book is part of our syllabus. This task is assigned by Prof. Dr.Dilip Barad sir, Head of the English Department of Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavsinhji Bhavnagar University (MKBU). As a part of the syllabus, students of the English Department are learning the paper called Contemporary Literatures in English. So, let’s start friends. But before we start I want to give short information about what kind of things we see here…

📌Here is the link of the professor's blog CLICK HERE

📌Brief Sketch of Amitav Ghosh & Novel :

The Indian author, Amitav Ghosh, is the winner of the 54th Jnanpith award, India's highest literary award, and most known for his fiction written in English. Amitav Ghosh's novels explore the nature of national and personal identity, particularly the identity of people in India and Southeast Asia, using complex narrative strategies. The Indian President awarded him the Padma Shri, one of India's highest honors, in 2007. He and Margaret Atwood were jointly awarded the Dan David Prize in 2010.In 2019, Foreign Policy magazine listed him among the top global thinkers of the previous decade as the first English-language writer to obtain the award. Amitav Ghosh writes The Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines, In An Antique Land, Dancing in Cambodia, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, and The Ibis Trilogy, consisting of Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire. His most recent book, The Great Derangement; Climate Change and the Unthinkable, a work of non-fiction, appeared in 2016.'Gun Island' is the ninth book by author Amitav Ghosh, set in the same Sundarbans as his 2006 novel The Hungry Tide, featuring the same untamed and complex ecosystem of canals and flat wetlands in his birthplace of West Bengal that supports a rapidly disappearing wildlife.This nation of flood- and cyclone-ravaged people is always on the lookout for storms on the horizon, always one disaster away from ruin. On Gun Island, we return to the Sundarbans, where we see a sense of helplessness and hopelessness, as if we cannot salvage a landscape ravaged by environmental damage.

Here is the Official Website of the Author : http://www.amitavghosh.com/

📌Critics Review on Novel :

"Amitav Ghosh’s ‘Gun Island’ is fiction for a new 

world. It cannot be judged by old standards "

This, perhaps, is the backdrop against which Amitav Ghosh’s latest novel, Gun Island, can be read. On the face of it, this work offers a continuity of many of Ghosh’s concerns in his fiction, among them memory (The Shadow Lines), history (The Ibis Trilogy, The Glass Palace), ecology (The Hungry Tide), and the inexplicable (The Calcutta Chromosome). It would not be wrong to say that all these elements make Gun Island what it is, the intersection of individual trajectories with larger forces affecting the world. As Ghosh told Scroll.in an interview, “It’s kind of disturbing really because reality is outrunning fiction in the weirdest of ways.” And by adding history, legend, and other intelligent life forms to this reality, the novel arrives at what you and I may call uncanny, but the writer prefers to term “preternatural”. “It’s clear,” he added, “that whatever it is, we don’t live in a world guided by reason. If we did, we would be doing something about what’s happening around us. So we have to look for some other explanation.” (Arunava Sinha, Scroll. In)

"Gun Island’ by Amitav Ghosh: 

The Bengali merchant in Venice"

The environmental devastation that the world is in the middle of today is possibly irreversible, and Ghosh is clearly conscious of it. In the face of such inevitability, Ghosh seems to have decided to throw himself at the windmills with all the urgency of a committed Quixote. Gun Island has bits of everything — magic, myth, history, science, zoology, etymology. It’s about climate change, but suddenly it’s also about migration and trafficking, and with the feeblest linkages. The result is not so much a Persian carpet as a patchwork quilt.He had his story right there — in the mysterious Sundarbans, in the sucking mud, the green waters. When Tipu is in the throes of his first vision, you are gripped by foreboding. Tipu and Rafi’s connect is uncanny and moving. The tracing of an ancient legend to its mysterious modern manifestations is as mesmerising as any account of the Illuminati. Ghosh should have simply let Manasa Devi lead him on. (Vaishna Roy, The Hindu)

"Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh review – climate and culture in crisis"

If Gun Island can at times feel a touch breathless – a detailed description of the habits of Irrawaddy dolphins, for example, giving way to an emergency dash in search of a rare anti-venom treatment, with mysterious symbols scrawled on the side of a shrine thrown in – then its underpinning is solid. Amid the freak cyclones and oxygen-starved waters comes the story – or stories – of migration across the ages; tales of escapology, of deprivation and persecution, of impossible yearnings for a new world that bring us, inexorably, to the terrified refugees on the Mediterranean. Which is, perhaps, Ghosh’s essential point; a shaggy dog story can take a very roundabout path towards reality, but it will get there in the end. It has to, or we’re all doomed. (Alex Clark, The Gaurdian)

📌Points To Ponder :

1) How does Amitav Ghosh use the myth of Gun Merchant 'Bonduki Sadagar' and Manasa Devi to initiate discussion on the issue of Climate Change and Migration/Refugee crisis / Human Trafficking? 

Amitav Ghosh wants to convey about the major situation we are experiencing today: climate change and migration, in Gun Island, by using myth. This tale of The Gun Merchant and Manasa Devi was cleverly exploited by Amitav Ghosh. The entire drama revolves on the pilgrimage of both Gun merchant and Dinanath. Both the people and the events are interconnected. So first we talk about Climate Change....

🔍Climate Change :

We observe a lot of instances on Gun Island that are related to climate change. Sundarban's floods and Venice's tides are two examples. We can see that Nilima mentioned the hurricane that hit Sundarban. Because of pollution and human interference, animals and other species are shifting their habitats. Fertilizer and other pollutants create a dead zone in the water, forcing dolphins to alter their location and movement frequently. 

"Eight days earlier – on November 12, 1970, to be precise – a Category 4 cyclone had torn through the Bengal delta, hitting both the Indian province of West Bengal and the state that was then called East Pakistan (a year later it would become a new nation, Bangladesh). Storms had no names in this region back then but the 1970 cyclone would later come to be known as the Bhola cyclone."

(p.19,Gun Island)

We can also connect the wildfire in Los Angeles today.Sir offered the recent example of flames that occurred in California, which may be linked to the blaze in Los Angeles, while discussing the issue of climate change.

‘Surreal’ California Wildfire: Why Expecting The Unexpected Is A Crisis Management Best Practice (Forbes)

Although most crisis situations cannot be foreseen, some crises turn out to be even more of a surprise than others. The Colorado Fire that is now raging on California’s Central Coast is a good example.

In the Second Part : Venice, when Deen and the other characters go to visit the blue boat, they encounter a variety of difficulties, including a tornado, strong winds, hailstorm, and rain. This is the ebb and flow of the season's cycle. We may also make a connection to today.

"Within minutes of leaving the airport we were hit by whirling squalls. At times the rain was so heavy that our pace slowed to a crawl. From our windows we could barely see the edge of the road. Even when the rain abated there was a strange menace in the sky, with eddies of inky cloud standing out against fields of deep grey."

(p.254, Gun Island)

"Climate change: Key crops face major shifts as world warms"(BBC)

The parts of the world suitable for growing coffee, cashews and avocados will change dramatically as the world heats up, according to a new study. 

🔍Migration/Refugee Crisis :

Gun Island is a story of travel and migrations, overlaid with myth and folktales, and the deepening crisis of climate change. It presents an intricately interwoven plot which connects human and animal, past and present, natural and the supernatural. Gun  Island explores  different  forms  of  migration,  starting  from  people  and  entire communities  being  uprooted  from  their  native  land  to  the  drastic  changes  recently  prevalent in the  migratory patterns  of  different  species.We take also another examples of migration and refugee crisis like..

• Syria Refugee
• Rohingya Refugee
• Climate Refugee

If we see the reasons of migration in the novel, we find four main reasons: 

• Calamities :

In the novel we see that because of the flood, Lubna Khala and her family had to relocate. In her community, everything had been destroyed. As a result, they will have to relocate. Many more people are fleeing the country due to drought, cyclones, floods, and other natural disasters.

‘A few months after this picture was taken there came a cyclone, really fearsome tufaan. The winds were so strong that they carried off the roof of our house. Then the water began to rise. It kept rising till it was halfway up the walls. We had no choice but to take shelter in a tree. Somehow my brothers managed to get all of us into the branches. But then we discovered that the tree was full of snakes; they had climbed up to get away from the water, just as we had. My brothers drove some of them off, with sticks, but

one of them was bitten. He fell into the floodwaters and we never saw him again. One of my nieces was bitten too – she died later that night.’(p.165,Gun Island)

• Communal Violence :

In the novel we can find Bilal was a generous individual who aided his friend's family. He and Kabir are acquaintances. His uncle seized Kabir's property.

‘A few years ago there was a dispute in my family, over land. One of my uncles is mixed up in politics and his sons are the local musclemen for the ruling party. For a long time they had been using their political clout to tryto grab a part of what was rightfully my father’s property. Every time there was a flood – which was happening more and more – they would try to move the boundaries. If we protested they would threaten us.'(p.196,Gun Island)

• Poverty :

In the novel there were Tipu and Rafi are forced to relocate due to poverty. Rafi is unable to repay the loan due to a lack of funds.

‘Yes. Tipu already knew some dalals in Bangladesh and he made

arrangements with them over the phone. One night we crossed the

Raimangal River and went over to Dhaka. The money that we had put

together – most of it was Tipu’s – was just about enough to pay for the cheapest kind of journey, overland, with a little left over, to see us through on the way. We spent two weeks in Dhaka and then the dalal put us on a minibus, along with a group of other men. I was carrying only a backpack, and so was Tipu. We had some clothes, a bit of food, and around 250 US dollars each, that’s all.(p.241,Gun Island)

• Socio-Economic Condition :

Palash is a figure who is in high financial standing and is not subjected to violence or natural disasters. He does, however, have a fantasy or a desire of moving to Finland, and he is doing so. However, he was unable to fulfil his ambition.

‘I came to Italy as a student, you see, which sets me apart from most

Bengali migrants. Back in Bangladesh, my circumstances were completely different from theirs. Most of them are from villages and small towns, while my father is a banker, in Dhaka. My older brother is a civil servant, quite high up. I studied at Dhaka University and even have a degree inmanagement. For some years I worked as a manager in a multinational corporation. I used to go to work in a car every day, wearing a suit and tie.’(p.270, Gun Island)

• Some Sort of restlessness drive people :

Some of the people are migrate because of the sorts of the restlessness and here in the novel we found example of Dinanath or Deen...

"Back in those days there were very few bookshops in Calcutta and their wares were far beyond my reach: instead, I had frequented libraries and second-hand bookshops. Reading was my means, I thought, of escaping the narrowness of the world I lived in. But was it possible that my world had seemed narrow precisely because I was a voracious reader? After all, how can any reality match the worlds that exist only in books? Either way, the fact was that novels had done for me exactly what critics had anticipated when ‘romances’ first began to circulate widely, in the eighteenth century: they had created dreams and desires that were unsettling in the exact sense that they were the instruments of my uprooting."(p.273, Gun Island)

Sir offered one piece of news related to migration in the classroom while discussing it.

"Deaths at Canada border: 'Cold' reality hits Gujarat village in pursuit of 'American dream'."

Dingucha village in Gandhinagar district is under international spotlight after a family of four - a couple and their two children - froze to death in Canada while allegedly attempting to cross over.(The new Indian express)

2) How does Amitav Ghosh make use of the 'etymology' of common words to sustain mystery and suspense in the narrative?

Etymology means the history of a linguistic form (such as a word) shown by tracing its development since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it is found, by tracing its transmission from one language to another, by analyzing it into its component parts, by identifying its cognates in other languages, or by tracing it and its cognates to a common ancestral form in an ancestral language.In this novel Ghosh uses many words with it’s etymology.

1) Gun Island:

Armaments, including bullets, were cast at a single foundry. In Venetian dialect, the term for foundry is "getto." The term "ghetto" is derived from the word "getto" and is associated with Jews.The alternative vocabulary for Venice is comprised of three seemingly unconnected items: hazelnuts, bullets, and weapons! The form of hazelnuts is comparable to that of bullets, which are required for firearms! The Arabic word for Venice is "Banadiq," which is the parent of the German and Swedish words "Venedig." "Banadiq" became "al-Bunduqeyya" in Arabic. As a result, this gun is known to as Venice rather than gun! So the title's ultimate meaning is a trader who visited Venice and discovered a ghetto-foundry.

2) Bhut - Ghost :

There is an email communication between Dinanath Datta and Tipu in part one of the storey, in one of the chapters titled Brooklyn. "What does "Bhuta" imply," Tipu inquired of Deen. Is it supposed to signify "ghost" or anything else? According to Deen, the Bangla word bhoot/bhuta means "to be" or "to manifest" since the Sanskrit root "bhu" signifies "to be" or "to manifest." As a result, "bhuta" simply means "being" or "presence." In the sense of "a former state of being," the term "bhuta" also refers to the past. We say "bhuta-kala" or "times past" in the same way. So this "bhuta" is "memory" rather than "ghost." As a result, it may be present in the form of memory.

"Look, I’m no expert on this,’ I wrote. ‘All I can tell you is that the Bangla word “bhoot” or “bhuta” comes from a basic but very complicated Sanskrit root, “bhu”, meaning “to be”, or “to manifest”. So in that sense “bhuta” simply means “a being” or “an existing presence”(p.110, Gun Island)

3) Possession :

The term "possession" is mentioned throughout the work. When a demon takes control of someone, this is known as possession. And the devil is nothing more than a metaphor for greed, a made-up creature. So possession isn't the same as when someone's soul enters our body and everything! We have seized control of that greed because of our own greed. It's also a type of awakening; you're becoming aware of things you've never thought or felt before. To put it another way, ownership is the awareness of things.

‘Demon.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s nothing. Just a metaphor for greed. An imaginary thing.’

‘Y’think greed’s imaginary?’ He chuckled. ‘Hey, Pops, I got news for

you: greed’s real, it’s big. You got greed, I got greed, we all got greed. Youwant to sell more books. I want more phones, more headphones, more everything. Fuck man, it’s not parasites we got inside of us, it’s greed! If that’s what a demon is, there’s no way it’s imaginary. Shit no! We’re all demons.’(p.116-117, Gun Island)

4)Land of Palm Sugar Candy :

"Taal-misrir-dish" is the Bengali term for it. Desh denotes a country, taal is a type of palm tree that produces sugar syrup, and misri denotes sugar sweet in Bengali. According to Cinta, the Arabic word "Misr" is used to refer to Egypt. As a result, Egypt is the name given to this location.

5) Island of Chains :

"Shikol-dwip" is the Bengali term for this. This is a reference to Sikelia, which is now known as Sicily. As a result, Sicily is referred to as the "Island of Chains."

6) Land of Kerchieves  :

Cinta inquired about the Bengali equivalent of this term. Rumaali-desh was the name Deen gave her. Rumaal is a handkerchief in Bengali. It's about Rumelia, according to Chinta, and Rumeli-Hisari is in Turkey.

3) What are your views on the use of myth and history in the novel Gun Island to draw the attention of the reader towards contemporary issues like climate change and migration?

The author's primary goal is to attract readers' attention to current concerns such as climate change and human trafficking. Ghosh exploited the Manasa Devi tale to do this. However, the way he tells the narrative, that procedure appears to be based on true occurrences from the past. To establish the items, you must tell a tale about them so that they remain in people's thoughts. That is why Ghosh employed the Manasa Devi myth, which was delivered in such a way that it appeared the storey was not myth but fact. What matters is that Ghosh wants to bring attention to the grave issues of climate change and migration.

4) Is there any connection between 'The Great Derangement' and 'Gun Island'? 

Yes, this novel "Gun Island" is a response to Ghosh's previous work "The Great Derangement." Because this book asks, "What function does literature play in the context of climate change?" Why aren't authors addressing it in their writings? And how can they communicate via literature? It contended that not enough modern literature addressed climate change as a major current concern. As a result, Gun Island serves as an illustration or explanation for those issues. We can grasp major issues like climate change and migration with the assistance of literature.

On the surface, Gun Island may seem like a fun, fast-paced adventure story, but there’s a lot going on beneath the surface that’s easy to miss on a first read. To really get the most out of this novel, it’s helpful to read it critically using Amitav Ghosh’s nonfiction book The Great Derangement as a guiding framework.Published in 2017 by the University of Chicago Press, The Great Derangement is based on a series of four lectures Amitav Ghosh gave at the University of Chicago for the Berlin Family Lectures. In the book, Ghosh explores the hesitancy of literary fiction to address climate change and questions why books that do address climate change are often disregarded or looked down upon by the literati as pulp or science fiction.(“Gun Island” as a response to “The Great Derangement”)

5) There are many Italian words in the novel. Have you tried to translate these words into English or Hindi with the help of google translate app ? If so, how is machine translation helping in proper translation of Italian words into English or Hindi ?

With the aid of Google Translate, I attempted to translate these terms into English or Hindi. Italian words are simple to translate into English or Hindi. CLICK HERE to get the spreadsheet with these words.

📝Additional Resources :

Amitav Ghosh on Gun Island

This group presentation done by sem 4 students from Department of English.MKBU......

📝Work Cited :

• Ghosh, Amitav. The Gun Island. 2019.

THANK YOU

About this Blogger : Riddhi Bhatt

Welcome to the official blog of

Riddhi Bhatt

Riddhi Bhatt has studying in Master of Arts in English Literature and Language at the department of English, M.K. Bhavnagar University. She has completed her Bachelor of Arts with English from Bhakt Kavi Narsinh Maheta University, Junagadh. Her areas of interest are writing blogs and being well versed with current happenings around the world, clicking photos, listening to all types of music, travelling, learning new things and applying them in daily life,  reading articles and books in Gujarati, English, and Hindi, observing various things including human behavior and nature, interacting with people with productive approach, brainstorming while working in team. She has uploaded academic presentations on SlideShare, and uploaded videos on YouTube. She has attended many talks and workshops organized at the department. She has written many academic and non-academic blogs and has completed a  Massive Open Online Course on Critical Thinking and Exploration of Culture from Canvas Network.

🔑Contact via Email: riddhi28bhatt@gmail.com

🔑Social Media Connections :

Research Methodology Workshop : Learning Outcome

 “There’s no discovery without a search and there’s no rediscovery without a research. 
Every discovery man ever made has always been concealed. 
It takes searchers and researchers to unveil them, that’s what make an insightful leader.”

Benjamin Suulola rightly said about research.“... we can define concept as a logical, mental construction of one or more relationships. [...] It is purely mental, is logical, and can be described; it has been reasoned through sufficiently and presented with clarity. As such, a concept is inherently abstract (takes some things as given or assumed)”My name is Riddhi Bhatt, and I am a student at MKBU's Department of English. We attended a session on Research Methodology on January 7, 2022. It was the second Research Methodology workshop. I'm going to write about the workshop's learning outcomes on my blog. Prof Dilip Barad sir has assigned the work.Dr. J.P. Majmudar will be the session's keynote speaker. This workshop was divided into three sections. It is quite beneficial to our research and writing.

📌Here is the link of the professor's blog CLICK HERE 

1. Importance of Research- by Prof.J.P.Majmudar
2. Avoid Plagiarism- Qualitative Research in Digital Era - by Prof. Dilip Barad 
3. Citation-Tools and Techniques - by Miss Vaidehi Hariyani 

💿Importance of Research- by Prof.J.P.Majmudar :

Prof. Jagdeep Majmudar was the session's primary guest today. He is the first coordinator and a retired professor from the Department of M.B.A. Our institution has reappointed him to oversee the research facilitation centre. This centre primarily focuses on Ph.D. research. Prof. Majmudar delivered really fascinating information on research and the relevance of research in the first session. While conducting research, systematic scientific enquiry is required.This session is the most beneficial to our comprehension of research and writing. As we all know, research should be methodical and scientific. We cannot obtain accurate knowledge about anything until we conduct study. Dr. Majmudar is associated with the market and management, thus he largely offered instances of study related to the market and MNF's survey. In fact, it is critical in any area. Research is highly important, and one cannot do research unless they know how to do it properly, or in a methodical manner. This course has been extremely beneficial to our dissertation writing and research. As we all know, research should be methodical and scientific. So we can realise the significance of authenticity and how much reservation benefits us in numerous domains like as.So we can appreciate the importance of authenticity and how much reservation benefits us in domains like as marketing strategy, management, and writing. In brief, research is an essential component of every study.

💿Avoid Plagiarism- Qualitative Research in Digital Era - by Prof. Dilip Barad :

The second session dealt on plagiarism. How can you avoid plagiarism? and what role does it play in research? What is qualitative research, and how can we make it qualitative in our study? How to pronounce it, how to spot plagiarism, the significance of citations, and at what degree is it permissible. What are the dimensions? How to Recognize CCP ( cut, copy, paste). As a result, it is also quite beneficial to us. Plagiarism is currently the talk of the town. This occurs in a large number of situations. Many people have had to resign from high-ranking jobs and awards as a result of it.

Ex. The president of Hungary, Pal Schmitt, resigned from his largely ceremonial post yesterday amid a storm of criticism over what he called “unfounded allegations” of plagiarism in his 1992 doctoral thesis.(The Irish Times)

There were 5 criteria for this research…

These all things will help us in our dissertation writing. Here I am putting the link to the worksheet, which helps us to understand which source is authentic. 

• The Plagiarism Spectrum: 10 Types of Unoriginal Work

📀Citation-Tools and Techniques - by Miss Vaidehi Hariyani :

Vaidehi mam led the last session on Citation. We performed group work on several citation tools in this session and discovered a lot of new stuff that we weren't aware of. We cited using Citation Machine (tool), which is one of the citation tools. Many issues are encountered when using this tool, such as the inability to locate suffixes, volumes, and other information. So there are two ways to accomplish it with Citation Machine.

• Automatic Citation
• Manual Citation

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

 Hello Monks...

I am Riddhi Bhatt. Today I want to talk about  "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" by Arundhati Roy. This book is part of our syllabus. This task is assigned by Prof. Dr.Dilip Barad sir, Head of the English Department of Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavsinhji Bhavnagar University (MKBU). As a part of the syllabus, students of the English Department are learning the paper called Contemporary Literatures in English. So, let’s start friends. But before we start I want to give short information about what kind of things we see here…

📌Here is the link of the professor's blog CLICK HERE 

Brief Sketch of Arundhati Roy & Novel :

Arundhati Roy is the author of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Suzanna Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist best known for her novel The God of Small Things (1997), which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and went on to become the highest-selling book by a non-expat Indian author. She is also a political activist who works on issues such as human rights and the environment. In 2017 Roy published The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, her first novel in 20 years. The work blends personal stories with topical issues as it uses a large cast of characters, including a transgender woman and a resistance fighter in Kashmir, to explore contemporary India. From land reform that displaced impoverished farmers to the 2002 Godhra train burning and Kashmir conflict, the novel weaves together the lives of people navigating some of the darkest and most violent moments in contemporary Indian history. Roy's protagonists span Indian culture, including an intersex lady (hijra), a renegade architect, and her landlord, an intelligence agency boss. The story spans decades and locales, although it is largely set in Delhi and Kashmir.Roy’s storytelling does not follow a linear pattern. It is composed of a variety of unrelated, fractured narratives, unified by one character – Anjum. These stories stem from situations of grief, abandonment, anger, helplessness, and above all, a lack of agency and subjectivity. 

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

Delhi of Utmost Happiness: The Old City in Arundhati Roy's Words 

The Quint

Arundhati Roy: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

📌If you want to read ' The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' click on the below image. This is the official website of the novel

Let's talk about the questions now.

1) Political Issues in the Novel :

There are several episodes in this story that are related to politics. The novel also covers some of the most heinous incidents in recent Indian history, such as land reform, the 2002 Godhra train fire, and the Kashmir insurgency. It depicts the LGBT community's struggles, sorrow, and right in contemporary India. Several social and political events that occurred in India and other regions of the world are woven throughout the plot. Roy also mentions the 1975 Emergency. Another key subject was debated in 1975 in Delhi's Jantar Mantar and in an emergency. People's statistics regarding numerous topics are compiled here.

✅Godhra train burning :

The Godhra train burning was an incident that happened on the morning of February 27, 2002, when a fire inside the Sabarmati Express train near the Godhra railway station in the Indian state of Gujarat killed 59 Hindu pilgrims and karsevaks returning from Ayodhya. Here in the second chapter khwabgah of the novel when Anjum and Zakir Mian travel to Ahmedabad, Gujarat this episode is referred to by Roy.

"Though they had no news from Anjum, the news from Gujarat was horrible.

A railway coach had been set on fire by what the newspapers first called

‘miscreants’. Sixty Hindu pilgrims were burned alive. They were on their way

home from a trip to Ayodhya where they had carried ceremonial bricks to lay

in the foundations of a grand Hindu temple they wanted to construct at the

site where an old mosque once stood....."

(p. 37, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness)

✅Episode of Jantar Mantar :

Roy spends the first quarter of the novel focusing on individuals gathered at the margins of the Jantar Mantar, a Mughal-era observatory in Delhi that also serves as a site for political protest. The media spectacle of the anti-corruption rallies launched by social activist Anna Hazare in 2011 has captivated the majority of people. The narrator, on the other hand, pulls the focus away from the media spectacle and onto the generally unseen demonstrations of communities longing for a voice in public debate, such as the victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas catastrophe and the Association of Mothers of the Disappeared from Kashmir. Outraged by the Kashmiri women's "audacity," no TV camera was directed at them, "not even by accident."

"Down below, on the pavement, on the edge of Jantar Mantar, the old

observatory where our baby made her appearance, it was fairly busy even at

that time of the morning. Communists, seditionists, secessionists,

revolutionaries, dreamers, idlers, crackheads, crackpots, all manner of

freelancers, and wise men who couldn’t afford gifts for newborns, milled

around. Over the last ten days they had all been sidelined and driven off what

had once been their territory – the only place in the city where they were

allowed to gather – by the newest show in town. More than twenty TV crews,

their cameras mounted on yellow cranes, kept a round-the-clock vigil over

their bright new star: a tubby old Gandhian, 

former-soldier-turned-villagesocial-worker, 

who had announced a fast to the death to realize his dream of a

corruption-free India. He lay fatly on his back with the air of an ailing saint,

against a backdrop of a portrait of Mother India – a many-armed goddess with

a map-of-India-shaped body."

(p.75, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness)

The Story of Kashmir

DEAD = 68,000

DISAPPEARED = 10,000

      " Is this Democracy or Demon Crazy?

No TV camera pointed at that banner, not even by mistake. Most of those

engaged in India’s Second Freedom Struggle felt nothing less than outrage at

the idea of freedom for Kashmir and the Kashmiri women’s audacity.

Some of the Mothers, like some of the Bhopal gas leak victims, had

become a little jaded. They had told their stories at endless meetings and

tribunals in the international supermarkets of grief, along with other victims

of other wars in other countries. They had wept publicly and often, and

nothing had come of it. The horror they were going through had grown a

hard, bitter shell."

( p.84, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness)

2) Gender Concerns in the Novel :

Some of the key subject issues of Roy's work are gender identities, caste and class inequalities, the faults of neoliberalism, and globalization. Jahanara Begum, Anjum's (Aftab) mother, is taken aback when she discovers a 'girl-part' in her kid. Aftab was intended to be the 'desired' son who would carry on the family name after three girls. Instead, Jahanara Begum was unprepared for the realities of having a Muslim "hijra." She attempts to keep the child's identity hidden until it's no longer a viable option.

In a patriarchal, orthodox, religious household, Aftab strives to control their 'feminine' behavior and feels claustrophobic. For Aftab, whose identity is in flux, gender conventions and preconceptions are major restraints.

In this context, it's critical to comprehend postmodern feminist Judith Butler's thesis on 'performativity,' and how traditional binaries reinforce sexism. Butler explains how sexual identities are nothing but social constructs. “Gender is a kind of persistent impersonation that passes as the real,” argues Butler, who says that gender subjectivity cannot be restricted to either ‘male’ or ‘female’. Therefore, Anjum’s gender identity is, as Butler argues, always in a “state of contextually dependent flux”. Anjum becomes a prey to derision and castigation because she does not conform to the strict gender categories of either male or female. Butler asserts, “what we take to be an internal essence of gender is manufactured through a sustained set of acts, posited through the gendered stylization of the body.” 

(Gender And Neoliberalism In Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness)

3)Environmental Concerns in the Novel/Ecofeminist study:

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy is a multi-level tale that spans ancient history to the current day through flashbacks. It looks at a variety of environmental and feminist topics.

🔍What is Ecofeminism?

Ecofeminism is a subset of feminism that considers environmental issues and the link between women and the environment to be central to its theory and practice. Ecofeminist theorists use the notion of gender to examine how people interact with the natural environment. Françoise d'Eaubonne, a French writer, invented the phrase in her novel Le Féminisme ou la Mort (1974). Ecofeminist theory is a feminist approach to green politics that advocates for a more equitable, collaborative society with no single dominating faction. Liberal ecofeminism, spiritual/cultural ecofeminism, and social/socialist ecofeminism are three streams of ecofeminism that have different perspectives and analyses today (or materialist ecofeminism). Ecofeminist art, social justice, and political theory are examples of how ecofeminism may be applied to social philosophy.

The opening coda laments the departure of sparrows and vultures from Indian metropolitan areas. The reasons for the sparrows' exodus are unknown, but their absence creates an audible hole that even the raucous "homecoming" of crows and bats cannot fill. After feasting on the carcasses of cattle injected with the chemical, the vultures die of "diclofenac poisoning." Diclofenac makes cattle "great dairy machines," yet it acts on vultures "like nerve gas." "Not many noticed the departure of the friendly elderly birds," the narrator continues. There was so much to anticipate." The vultures lose their grip in the future wall as the epic march of development discourses continues.

The other feminist character apart from Anjum is Tillotama, Maryam Ipe, Revathy.In all these characters we can read ecofeminism.

4)  Narrative Patterns in the Novel :

The narrative pattern of 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' is quite difficult to grasp. The narration in this work shifts from first to third person. The first part of the novel is told in the third person by an omnipresent narrator who describes Anjum's life and the people who surround her. The second section begins with Biplab Das as the narrator, introduced as 'The Landlord' by the title, and then as Hobart Garson (the name by which Tilo called him since he acted out that role in their skit). As a result of the evidence, this section of the story is subjective and prejudiced, "Or at least that's the way I see it," resulting in an untrustworthy narration.

The novel is disjointed and unwieldy, lacking in cohesion and succinctness. It is a hybrid of two books, one dealing with the hijra community and the downtrodden middle class, and the other with the topic of terrorism in Kashmir. Even the third short storey, about a lady Naxalite, is attempting to be loosely related towards the conclusion. The arrival of Azad Bhartiya in the early section of the narrative is only tangentially linked to the major plot. His appearance at the end of the novel to seek Miss Jebeen's Naxalite mother is also an afterthought, not essential to the plot.

As if this were not enough, there is an exasperating mix of registers also – Urdu poetry, mundane reportage, personal notings, etc., which test the reader’s patience – “frustratingly rambling”, as a critic

comments, “shockingly uneven in its register. Soaring to flights of irony and poetry one moment, plunging into anodyne reportage the next, it appears to be composed by several minds and hands, unable to decide its tone and texture”.

(Book Review: The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness By Arundhati Roy)

Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is much more than a work of fiction; it is a social commentary on the existent realities of gender, class, caste, and sexuality, which are frequently pushed under the carpet for fear of exposing the democratic society's flaws and loopholes. But it is hard to imagine an equitable society where various lives may coexist without fear of compulsion, castigation, violence, or criticism until these flaws are addressed and ways to bridge the gaps are found. Roy's storey challenges us to consider, rethink, conceive, and reinvent our own positions in society, whether privileged or oppressed, and to fight toward a more equal and powerful world.

Additional Resources :

Work Cited :

• Butler, Judith. 2006. Gender Trouble. Routledge Classics. London: Routledge
• Ghoshal, Somak. Book Review: The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness By Arundhati Roy. Hufpost. 2 June, 2017. 
• Roy, Arundhati. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. 2017.
• Suleman, Danish. "political and Gender issues in Arundhati Roy’s "TheMinistry of Utmost Happiness"Masalah Politik dan Gender dalam Arundhati Roy "The Ministryof Utmost Happiness"." ReserchGate (2020): 8.
• Tikkanen, Amy. "Arundhati Roy". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Nov. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arundhati-Roy. Accessed 11 January 2022.
  

Thank You....

Difference between MLA 9th and 8th Edition

 Hello Monks..

I am Riddhi Bhatt.This blog is assigned by our prof. Ms. Vaidehi Hariyani sir as a part of a thinking activity about the "Difference between MLA 9th and 8th Edition".

Research & Dissertation Writing Workshop : Learning Outcome

Hello Monks...

"Research means that you don’t know, but are willing to find out."

Charles F. Kettering rightly said about research. Research is the process of collecting data, saving critical information, then analyzing and interpreting the data. There are three types of research: exploratory, casual, and descriptive. Each of them is used for a different purpose and in a certain way. Research is important in all fields of work. For example, clinical research is what permits doctors to determine the way to treat patients best. It is what makes the event of the latest medicines, new procedures, and new tools doable. If it weren't for clinical analysis, we wouldn't be ready to decide if new treatments are more efficient than the current treatments. On 4th January 2020 we had a workshop on Research and Writing a Dissertation at the Department of English, MKBU. This workshop helps us in selecting our dissertation topic and how we will write our further topic. Our resource persons were Dilip Barad sir and Dr. Ndoricimpa Clement sir.

When students are told to conduct research and write a dissertation, they sometimes do not know where to begin, what is involved in research, what steps they must follow, what structure a dissertation must have, what argumentation style they may adopt, etc. Indeed, doing a research and writing may be daunting to students. This may be because of the complexity and the technicality involved in research and in writing a dissertation. Therefore, this workshop is intended to help students:

 Key Concern of this Workshop :

• understand what is involved in research and the steps that are adopted in research;
• identify an appropriate research topic;
• select and define a research problem;
• select appropriate research design and methods;
• organize and write a dissertation;
• understand the style of argumentation.

📌Concepts of Research :

🔍What is Research? :

Here Dr. Clement sir explain to us threw Walliman's definition of research that “Research” is an organized, scientific, and systematic investigation of truths about a particular subject or about things that no one else knew (Walliman, 2011). It simply means hunting for new knowledge. Research also means a scientific investigation to solve problems, test hypotheses, and develop new knowledge. Research is scientific because it uses scientific methods by making an integrated use of inductive-deductive reasoning. 

According to Walliman (2011), this inductive-deductive reasoning follows the process below:

• identifying or clarifying the problem; 
• inductively creating a hypothesis (testable theory); 
• deducing their implications; 
• practical or theoretical testing of the hypothesis; 
• rejecting or redefining the hypothesis in light of the results.

🔍Types of Research :

🔍Characteristics of Research :

• It is based on the works of others;
• It can be replicated (duplicated)- reliability;
• It is generalizable to other settings (external validity);
• It is based on some logical rationale and tied to a particular theory (content validity);
• It is doable;
• It generates news questions;
• It is important;
• It advances the frontiers of knowledge.

📌Selection of a topic for Research :

🔍How to select a topic? :

Here sir very well explain that To begin, choose a topic that is closely related to your academic interests, personal experiences, and preferred areas of inquiry. Second, before choosing a study topic, you must address the following questions:

• Do I have the necessary skills to accomplish this study?
• Are research tools and participants accessible to complete this study?
• Am I financially capable to accomplish my work? Is the allotted time sufficient to finalize all the steps of research?
• Do I have resources and documents necessary to obtain data?
• Is there an availability of professionals in my research who are ready to advise and assist me in the course of my research?

He analyses what makes an excellent research subject in Characteristics of a Research Topic...

📌Research Process :

🔍The research process is as follows:

📌Writing a Dissertation :

In the last part of the session, sir explain to us that how to make the structure of a dissertation, Argumentation strategies in dissertation.

🔍The structure of a Dissertation :

🔍Argumentation strategies in Dissertation :

There are a variety of argumentation tactics that may be used in a dissertation to persuade others that your findings are true and that the new information you've developed is well-founded. Referential methods, prediction strategies, and legitimization strategies are among these argumentation tactics.

1. Referential and prediction strategies

To define the study's aim and illustrate how the study is important—work investigating—referential and predictive tactics are used. Prediction techniques are indicated by terminology that assigns traits to the study's object, other studies, persons, and so on, whereas referential methods are marked by descriptive vocabulary.

2. Legitimization strategies 

Legitimization tactics are used to persuade others (readers) that your findings are true and that the new information you've developed is well-founded.

It was a really beneficial seminar for both sem 4 and sem 2 students. Sir, we've already submitted our study proposal. However, following today's session, we have a better understanding of our issue, how to make an argument, what sort of question we may ask, and so on. Many students had questions about their topic, and the answers they received were satisfactory. At the conclusion of the session, Sir presented the department students with a book for research in ELT as a symbol of his appreciation. We are grateful to the workshop's resource people for creating such a well-designed program.

📌Reference :

• Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2007). Research methods in education (6 th ed.). London and New York: Routledge.
• Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research methods in applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Williman, N. (2011). Research Methods: The Basics. London & New York: Routledge.

📌Some glimpse of the Workshop :

Thank You....

Translation Workshop: Learning Outcome

 Hello Monks...

"Writers make national literature, while translators make universal literature."

Jose Saramago rightly said the above lines. Today I want to talk about the workshop on Translation Studies. Yes, on 3rd January 2022 we attended a workshop on Translation Studies by Vishal Bhadani sir at the Department of English, MKBU. This blog is assigned by Prof.Dilip Barad sir as a part of a thinking activity about the learning outcome of this workshop. So this workshop is for one full day and there were two sessions in this workshop. Sir discussed the metaphors for translation, myths people have about translation, and how careers can be made in the translation field. He brings a very interesting title to this workshop. "My love story with a translation" is the title of the workshop.

: Learning outcome :

1) Has your understanding of translation improved? 

Yes, my understanding of translation is improved because this is the first translation workshop that I attend. After this workshop, I came to realize the translation is not what we used to think of, it's beyond our imagination. Also I realize that Translating from one language to another is the most delicate of intellectual exercises; compared to translation, all other puzzles, from a bridge to crosswords, seem trivial and vulgar. To take a piece of Greek and put it in English without spilling a drop; what a nice skill!.He also referred to Gayatri Chakravarthy Spivak she said that 

"Translation is the closest reading of the text."

In the first session, he talked about that People have several myths about translation like,

• Untranslatability 
• Translation is a small industry
• Most translators translate book
• Machine translation is crushing the demand for human translation
• Translation is either beautiful or faithful

So sir very well explain that these are all myths, there is scope in the translation field, machines can not translate regional words. So my understanding of translation has improved.

2) Can you write about translation in terms of metaphors? 

Yes, there are several metaphors about translation and sir gave 7 metaphors to explain how translation Studies are connected with each other.

1) Moon(Nature) :

Moon is the first metaphor I'd like to provide. The finest illustration of translation is the Moon. The moon does not have its own beauty; rather, it is a reflection of the sun's light. The sun's radiance gets translated into the tranquility of the moon. Similarly, translations can occasionally be more beautiful than the original material.

2) Head of Lord Ganesha (Mythology) :

Lord Ganesha's head is another metaphor. With this metaphor, we may claim that translators do not set a word as it is, but rather place some acceptable terms. to substitute a comparable item for the original; this suggests that we can substitute similar terms for the original. That appears to be a close match to the original.

3) Lord Rama and Navik (Epic) :

The text is Lord Rama, the translation is Navis, the dictionary is a woman and the translation is 'Charan Shudhdhi.' We can observe the translation process in this metaphor. Do not attempt to translate without the aid of a dictionary.

3) What according to you is the most difficult aspect of practical translation? 

The most difficult component of practical translation, in my opinion, is to comprehend the literary meaning of a given text, paragraph, phrase, or line, and then to find the suitable word, or translation, that does not alter the sense of the original work. The issue that occurs in our minds throughout the translation, and which Sir also answered, is that Google also offers translation, and there are other applications accessible, so what is the need for human translators??? Machine or application are don't always give the appropriate meaning of some terms, according to sir's response.

4) learning outcome from the workshop 

"Translating means having the honesty to stick to an allusive imperfection."

This workshop has taught me a lot of useful information. Things like the scope of part-time and full time translation, for example. You must have an full-time understanding of Humanities and Fine Arts, Journalism and Mass Media, Commerce, Management, Law, Education, Science, Social Work, Engineering, and Architecture if you want to be a translator. It is not a simple process to translate. When translating, you must be extremely cautious since one incorrect word can completely change the meaning. Another thing I learned traveler from the workshop is that while translating, you must utilizea dictionaries. A good traveler is an excellent translator. You must pay attention to what is going on around you in order to apply it to your job. And yes We have done one exercise in a paper. Here is the picture of that exercise.

• Sir gave us some names of the websites which helps us to know the news analysis :

1. Scroll.in
2.  The wire
3.  Washington post
4.  Big Think
5.  M I T
6. Service Spacethe

•  He askes to do translation of this words or lunch exercise we can say...

1. ભાઈ વગર ની બેન
2. બેન વગર નો ભાઈ
3. મારાં લોકભારતી ના શિક્ષણ એ મારી કેળવણી કરી. 
4. ઝેર તો પીધા છે જાણી જાણી. 
6. Imperfect is the joy not shared by all.'
7. 'ફરે તે ચરે અને બાન્ધ્યો ભુખે મરે.'

To conclude I want to say that It was really a great informative workshop in which sir also made us translate some of the sentences to make us feel the real brushing of the mind needed in translation. He also gave us tips to improve our English language and how we can enter into this line.

Thank you..