Scholar no Intellectual ? : Trends in Humanities Overground
[Trends in Humanities Overground: A HUG survey] ————————————————————- James Turner, in his monumental work Philology: The Forgotten Origins of Modern Humanities (2014) , makes an early distinction: between the scholar and the philosopher/intellectual. Not because each kind cannot delve into the other’s domain but because the methods of reaching their respective goals are different. The scholar is beholden to erudition. The intellectual, on the other hand is seeking wisdom. The scholar must harbour two clear propensities: one, an encyclopedic ambition to amass the details and shades of scholarship, and second, a detached sangfroid to excavate, parse, chisel, interpret and classify information systematically. He must be truly picky with every bit of data that he may garner and then try and join the dots. A scholar’s passion is rigorous source-criticism: to be found only in the minutia of his engaged world. The philosopher, on the contrary, is either seeking truth or trying to interrogate it. He will take a position, which will be argued with passion and logic. He is a man of ideas, unlike the scholar. And he might get into the missionary business of the social and the political, unlike the scholar again. James Turner and a group of scholar-philologists are taking on the tribe of the intellectuals. They are taking on the literary theorists—people who try to marry truth-concepts or terminologies to art, language and the ebb and flow of history. The philologist, by contrast, has an abiding passion for words and the turn of the phrase, in how meaning is conveyed. He respects the delicacy of language. Till 1800, an original unitary philology encompassed not only grammar and syntax but editing and commentary, etymology and lexicography and then anthropology, archeology, biblical exegesis, linguistics, law, art history and literary criticism. Turner’ diachronic and then spatial survey of the Atlantic philological learning eventually leads to the story of England’s global expansion in the 18th century, that occasions lengthy asides on the European appropriation of Sanskrit learning, from the time of Colebrooke and ‘Oriental’ Jones, and the first systematic studies of Native American languages, whose early enthusiasts included Thomas Jefferson. The turn of the next century finds intimations of emerging revolutions in history (e.g. Gibbon), the study of language (Humboldt), biblical philology (J. D. Michaelis), and the edition and interpretation of modern literature (especially Theobald and Dr Johnson on Shakespeare). In a perceptive review of the book, Whitney Cox tells us that the real turning point in Turner’s presentation comes with the emergence of the new knowledge-form of Altertumswissenschaft, beginning in earnest with the publication of Niebuhr’s Römische Geschichte (1812). This new disciplinary formation, reliant upon rigorous source- criticism, was driven by a desire to reconstruct every aspect of a long-vanished human world. Inherent to it and decisive to Turner’s story is the proposition of an inherent difference between the world of the past and that of the modern researcher. This rapidly if controversially extended into the historical criticism of Christian scripture stimulated the study of the material and religious culture. “The process of the gradual reception of German learning into the Anglosphere is one of best set-pieces of Turner’s presentation: cosseted in their High Table otium. ” With this, the departmental structure of a modern liberal arts college or humanities faculty is basically in place, with each discipline by now in possession of its own professional associations, journals, and conferences, and its own sense of specialized problems and jargon. Such an apparent diversity, however, is a sham, Turner declares in his meditation. He laments that it is impossible to imagine a contemporary academic career of a serious philologist, cheerfully careening between Donne and Dante, medieval architraves and early-modern portraiture. Turner’s book is one of a kind, but he is not alone. In the past two decades, there has been a systematic interest in reviving and providing philology with a wider currency. And a simultaneous emphasis on literary historicism is back with a vengeance. The New Philology movement (though still disparate, the votaries hold a lot of sway within the academia) broadens the ambit of its own lineage, say, by not looking at manuscripts from the perspective of text and language alone. Visual images, annotations of various forms like captions, rubrics, glosses and interpolations have now emerged as key areas to explore within philology. The division between a text editor and an art historian is untenable, a new batch of younger scholars feel. Artists and artisans have always been together: poet, scribe, illuminator, rubricator, commentator, all in an act of creation and therefore interpretation, of text/texts. Collective effort and interartistic rivalries interest philologists now. For instance, in medieval studies, there is a remarkable inter-textual possibility when a painted miniature, poetic text, and copies of manuscript (or digital versions now) are studied, placing them alongside. The verbal and visual mediums vie with each other and the scope of parsing and classifying is immense. This is what a contemporary philologist will call the Manuscript Matrix or the Illuminated Matrix. Manuscript matrices are places of radical contingencies—of representation, chronology and perception. They reveal and conceal pulsations of the mystical which are also historical.Such matrix cultivate diversity and variance—an original impulse of philological scholarship. Around thirty years ago Paul de Man, in a prescient essay ‘The Return of Philology’ (collected in The Resistance to Theory, 1986), referred to the scholar Rueben Brower and pronounced: “Mere reading, it turns out, prior to any theory, is able to transform critical discourse in a manner that would appear deeply subversive to those who think of the teaching of literature as a substitute for the teaching of theology, ethics, psychology, or intellectual history. Close reading accomplishes this often in spite of itself because it cannot fail to respond to structures of language which it is the more or less secret aim of literary teaching to keep hidden”. This is what is said, in sheer appreciation about a kind of a transformative philological scholar, by one of the foremost deconstructionists of 20th century. For, de Man is one of the most rigorous
The Nineteenth of May, Selections
Translations: Arjun Chaudhuri —————————————- Feeling the Nineteeth–of Poetry and Resistance Tushar Kanti Nath The Language Movement of 1961 has provided immense enthusiasm to the poets and writers of Barak Valley; it has fostered to a markedly significant degree the progress of the literatures of this region as well. In the eighties decade of the last century, the tone and tenor of Bengali poetry from Barak Valley did take a turn towards a different idiom. The author holds this very turn up to light and attempts to read how the Bengali poets of Barak Valley, after the Language Movement, have strung the consciousness of the Nineteenth of May like a bead into the garland of letters that their poetry is. The very sound of the phrase “Unishe May” (the Nineteenth of May) evokes the image of a red, bloodied day from 1961 in the imagination of the people of Barak Valley. The Nineteenth of May is in itself one long, difficult history, a firm pillar in our cultural consciousness, the cultural consciousness of this region. A history of great strength, fortitude and sacrifice remains embedded within it. The surging political impetus that was seen throughout the entire region of Barak Valley during the Language Movement, and which steered the valley and its people towards an inclusive civil movement for the protection of the dignity of the mother tongue remains till date a very rare example. Through a long and strong resistance, effective protest and unending struggle, the people of this valley have succeeded in protecting their linguistic and cultural identities. As it is, any significant incident in the history of any community, or race, or ethnie will invariably lead towards a surge of inspiration in the hearts of creative people. This impact is felt most in case of the literary and artistic production of the age. Across Barak Valley and in West Bengal, the self sacrifice of the eleven martyrs of the Language Movement of 1961 similarly exerted a major influence in the minds of poets, writers, artists and journalists, and even in all other spheres of the society. Manish Ghatak, Balaichnad Mukhopadhyay (Banaphul), Dakshinaranjan Basu, Ramendra Deshamukhya, Kumudranjan Mallik and other poets of that era had spoken out in their poetry, protesting against the shooting at Silchar Railway Station. The story of the great movement of 1961, the rise of the masses against the state of Assam, and the story of the great martyrdom of the eleven people on 19th May, 1961 did not really garner much attention in the little magazines, or the literature in this region during the sixties decade. In the seventies, there was yet another phase of resistance against the linguistic aggression exerted on ethnic groups in this part of the state. The language movements in the sixties and the seventies did exert a tremendous influence over the poets of Barak Valley, but there was no significant outpouring from them in the pages of the literature produced after that time here. However, the cultural significance of this entire history was great, and ran deep. In reality, what did not happen in the sixties-seventies decades came into existence in the eighties when a group of young writers, through the little magazines they edited and published, and even their individual work, manifested how much the bloodied Language Movement had held sway over their minds, their hearts, their consciousness. And it was in this eighties decade of the last century when another distinct turn in the trajectory of literary thought was noticed in Barak Valley’s literary spaces. This distinct turn was a veering of contemporary poetic expression towards the village, the rural spaces of this region. In this context Dr. Amalendu Bhattacharjee writes: I do believe, and I can also produce evidence to substantiate my belief, that from the second half of the eighties decade, the literature of Barak Valley has turned mostly toward the rural spaces of the region. Those who confer otherwise, and publicise that sort of thought in the mass media do not, it would seem, know the truth, or if they do, they do not wish to acknowledge it. (“Khelaghor”, Sharad anthology 1317 Bengali era: “Samipeshu”, Pg. 2) The reason why the literature of that age became inclined towards a rural space, towards a ‘rural’ idiom was because the people writing at that time were mostly young men and women who originally belonged to those rural spaces. They tirelessly worked for the pursuit of literary production through their little magazines, which they started publishing from those very marginal, rural spaces. What was added to the general character of these little magazines was this – a desire to spread the consciousness of Nineteenth May through the written word, a wish to see the glorious story of Nineteenth May brought to the world outside. The revolutionary zeal of these young writers expressed in their writing advanced the stature of the historical and cultural consciousness of the Language Movement to a new height. The vast lacuna in the poetic idiom of the sixties-seventies decade was brought home to the eagle eyed poets of the eighties decade. In an editorial from the literary magazine Ityadi (Ninth year: Fifteenth edition: 1988) it was said: It can now be concluded without doubt that the poets of Barak Valley writing in this decade have focused in their writing on contemporary society and times, especially on the discontent simmering in the hearts of the people of this region, on outright rebellion, and the fragrance of the earth. This, however, was not noticed at all in the poetry of the previous decade…the poets of the preceding two decades had turned their faces away from the pain and agony of a deprived human existence, from the time they lived in and the society they were a part of, and had continued writing their distanced poetry. In their poetry, we do not see any traces of the tread of the time they lived in; only a smoggy emptiness greets us there. The
Keisham Priyokumar and the Economy of Fragmented Narratives
Loiya Leima Oinam [This essay is on changing trends in identity formation in Manipur. I focus on the construction of the ethnic outsider in relation to anti-outsider movements and the Kuki Naga clashes (1992-97) in Manipur and the ways they were narrativised in short stories.] ——————————— Keisham Priyokumar is perhaps the most important author in this regard since his stories capture the challenges in presenting the subjectivities and a coherent narrative of the killings. His work shows that fiction can also provide an important intervention in the linear and sanitised histories that one comes across concerning these events. Here, I have dwelled on one short story by Priyokumar in order to understand the predicament of the writer in fictionally re-presenting real incidents of ethnic violence, and also to reflect on our own interpretive engagement with narratives of such nature. In a way, the difficulty faced by the author while trying to reconstruct this particular story leads us to a scenario where one can reconcile with narrative perspectives or voices that are sutured. *** In the first edition of his collection of short stories Nongdi Tarakkhidare (The Rain that Failed) (1995), Keisham Priyokumar expresses his objective of presenting “inner worlds”, and contends that the seriousness of literary work lies in the ability to depict the changing world.[1] This is not an “experiment”, he says, but the “journey” of the short story in Manipur (ibid). Priyokumar makes clear his commitment to representing people who live at the periphery of progress and modernity and to whom he dedicated his multiple awards winning book, including the Sahitya Akademi Award. As someone who is particularly conscious of the contribution of his stories in the field of arts, there has been a discernible change in his assessment of his own work and role as a writer. A decade later, he maintained that the long standing aim for a “new expression” in his writing is deliberate.[2] Amidst the gradual evolution of the short story form in Manipur in conjunction with the changing social situation, the 1970s marked a new wave in short story writing. Considered as path-breaking, the bi-monthly journal Meirik (Sparks) had its inception during the 1960s. From 1974 onwards it became a collective venture of some of the most renowned writers in Manipur. Conceptualised under the leadership of Nongthongbam Kunjamohan, the first volume of Meirik came out in 1974. The other writers were Shri Biren, Yumlembam Ibomcha, Lamabam Birmani, Keisham Priyokumar, Laitonjam Premchand, among others (Aruna, 2009). It heralded a new and experimental style in form and themes, and the use of dreams and allegories became popular. As subsequent writers began to focus on marginalised voices, the influence of Meirik became even more apparent in the realistic portrayal of society and contemporary issues besetting the state. Although the generation of short story writing to which Priyokumar belonged was in itself a groundbreaking one, for him, a desire for further change, if not disillusionment, set in. It stems from problems regarding publishing and even of readership. He says, “[m]oreover, our literature is not able to do anything for the society today… So, I can write no more short stories. This is what worries me. For now, I can just quietly observe and listen”.[3] Following this rather grim declaration in Lan amasung Mang (War and Dream) (2000), The Rain that Failed has seen its third edition due to its resonance in the current socio-political atmosphere. He admits that he continues to face queries from fellow writers as to whether he will write again or not. The eponymous short story “The Rain that Failed” won him critical acclaim and was adapted in theatre and as a telefilm.[4] From “The Rain” to other stories in the 1995 collection, one sees a collage of fragmented narratives and fractured selves of individuals getting habituated to living with ethnic conflict and everyday violence. Priyokumar’s work has stood out for its ability to sensitively and insightfully portray the lives of the underdogs and those living at the darker end of modernity and development. His changing perspective regarding the efficacy of the function of writers in contemporary times points towards the complex and rather important role of the fiction writer. He therefore brings up the centrality of the short story writer in relation to ‘acts’ of witnessing and questions about translating the real experiences and testimonial utterances into fiction. In the entire process of conceiving a story, the writer then draws upon the lives of the people he comes across for inspiration and presents the experiences as those of the fictional characters. “The Rain”, written in October, 1994, is one of the most poignant stories to have captured the deep-rooted social and personal devastations of the nineties Kuki-Naga clashes. Apart from it, the author has dwelled on the subject in “Ahing Ama” (One Night) and “Mangsatheigi Mang” (Mangsathei’s Dream) from War and Dream (2000). Based on the life of Chongnikim, whose husband died in the killings, “The Rain” is told through a series of flashbacks and reminiscences of events preceding Lungjahao, the husband’s, death. Set against a secluded village in Manipur that is situated near the Barak River (Assam), the story opens with a glimpse of a beguilingly simplistic life led by the couple even while facing acute adversity. In the story, Priyokumar depicts a multi-cultural society that draws its peaceful co-existence from a mutually demarcated distance and civility. This is only ritually crossed while carrying out trade-related transactions. Lungjahao cuts and sells bamboo to the “extremely thin, dark complexioned” Moti, which are then carried across to the other side of the village on a makeshift ferry through the powerful streams of the Barak river. However, when the much anticipated rain never comes and fails to fill the river, Lungjahao goes to another village to fish in order to provide for his family. Chongnikim’s good-humoured parting remark, “Be careful, lest the fish kills you” (“The Rain” 95), proves ominously prophetic when Lungjahao is brought back dead. Chongnikim is based on a real person
Fafamau
Prasanta Chakravarty ওর আর কোনো গতি নেই জানো, কবিতা লেখা ছাড়া—she does not have any recourse, you know, other than writing poetry. This is what rings in my ears. This is how Anindita Mukhopadhyaya, whom I keep meeting as she swings on her Aeolian School Balcony ( বাতাসিয়া স্কুল বারান্দায়ে ), was introduced to me by a friend who himself only knows to swim and perish with poetry. There is a ticket that you have to earn. If you are ‘an explorer of the bliss of writing’, in Roland Barthes’ words. And this ticket can only be earned if you have routinely skipped classes and tutorials in college, dumped all projects and deadlines for good: কলেজ পালিয়ে যারা চুপিচুপি /ঘাসে নেমে এলো,/চলে গেল দূর দূর গঞ্জের হাটে,/তারা পেল /ঝাউফুল আর –/নেপচুনের সমুদ্র মুকুতা “Those who bunked college classes, and noiseless /Came down to the grass /Disappeared at the gunj-haat /They would accrue jhau-flowers/Neptune’s sea-pearls” On this balcony, living is tentative. Buffeted, but not indifferent: living, dying and living again on the swinging school balcony is a shared belief system that one partakes of. No one looks for any clarification here. Because no pointers are given. Living is staying in constant amazement of our existence and being aware of our finitude, even as we are deeply aware of and puzzled by the angelic and diabolic presences all around us: আসলে একটা পোকা সেই কোনকালে/মাথায়ে সেঁধিয়ে গেল–/ গন্ধতেলে ভেসে থাকত দুপুরের সর,/অসুধ খেয়ে সে কী ঘুম/আলোকলতা পিসির,–ইজিচেযারটা হাঁফাত,/বিচ্ছিরি টিকটিকি দুটো কী যে করত/খাটের তলায়!/ সমীরণ ধীরে না বইলে ভীষণ ভয় করত/সবেদন পরশন সইতে না পেরে/ছবিটা ঝনঝন করে পড়ে ভাঙলে/লতুপাগলি আবার সমস্ত পাড়াঘর মাথায় করবে | “Actually an insect, long ago/Embedded itself in the head /Afternoon’s rind stayed afloat in fragrant oil / Popping pills, those everlasting siestas used to begin /Aloklata Pishi’s easy-chair would pant /Those ugly lizards! Devil alone knows what they were up to /Underneath the bed/The buffeting breeze, not gentle, would terrify /Unable to withstand the aching touch /The painting came crashing down, in splinters/Lotu pagli, her wails and shrieks, shall once again wake the whole colony up.” Living is slow. And living is a misunderstanding that is unmistakably erotic. So the poetic recollection of that eroticism is eternity’s flowing back into the present. For the poetic tick that infiltrates our head is a delicious pall of an unrushed creamy rind, maddening in its extended fragrance. Everything around us takes time, wondrous and wondering , every bit rocks sluggishly, the insect’s magical potion taking charge, gestates inside our head—the leaden siesta, aunt’s chair that is easy, the resident lizards, all owe their existence in the nowness of their presence to that bug that had entered our cranial woodwork at the beginning of time. The bug of existing is now in poesy, undulating in living matter, throbbing. Such is the tremulousness of our living, such is its pitch-perfect diurnal cycle, that any minor change in this seasonal flavor— effected by the busy wind in this case, will inevitably lead to shrillness and imbalance. This strident intrusiveness of the wind starts off the dawdling madwoman. Who, with some oracular premonition, alerts us with her clamour of some impending doom. As a contrary force to time’s wind, there is a waft of a breeze, not mellow but full, and it always arrives in the dawn—যোগাযোগহীন এক হাওয়া —an unconnected puff of air. This is how visitations of memory, and connections, rustle us. This rustle will take more concrete shape anon. There is a side to the gunj/shahartoli existence that fills us up with rubies and pearls, this lost existence in utter oblivion–কী গান যেন, কাদের ঘরে?–অনুচ্চ, অনুক্ত…/ সেও বোঝেনা আমরাও চাই ওসব মণিমুক্ত. The basis of an existence, of all poetry, is the unsaid, the tonality of the low-lying, sunken, the nether. This is where the Aeolian balcony appears —within the cocoon of a concerned oblivion. It is a school of learning, a magical parallel cosmos that runs athwart us—বাঁ পাশে বিস্কুট-কলোনী ভরে যাচ্ছে নতুন আলোয়—this is the milky way of the light-awash refuge of a biscuit colony. It is this incandescent biscuit colony on the left side of our existence that leads to that dawn’s railway station where one encounters fafamau: হঠাত জীবনে এলো ফাফামাউ/ ভোররাতে রংচটা কোটে/…স্টেশনমাস্টার বলেন ” এই তো সিগন্যাল/ এ লেড়কি, ট্রেনে উঠে পড়”/তিনি তো জানেন না কিছু –/জীবনে এসেছে ফাফামাউ !/…এইবার ভোর হবে, পাহাড়িয়া ভোর/জোনাকিরা ফিরে গেছে, বাবুনাই ডাকে…/তুমি যদি নাও আসো/জীবনে তো ফাফামাউ এলো/ তাকে ছেড়ে তাকে ছেড়ে/যাবনা কথাও আমি আর | “And lo! fafamau has come into my life/ In his discoloured coat, at dawn/ The station-master says “There goes the signal/Hey girl, get into the train”/ But hardly would he know/ that fafamau has come into my life! /…Soon there will be morn, a hilly morn/ The fireflies have departed, the babunai sings…/Even if you do not arrive/Still fafamau has come into my life/Leaving him, quitting him/ I shall not, shall not go anywhere.” There is a undistinguished railway station where fafamau lives. The station is laden with matt-blue wooden benches, and a bluer waiting room. Here’s where fafamau shall welcome you. And black deodar trees and deodar fruits are afar, that surrounds you as night falls over you like a shroud. The tall darkening blacks, the azure waiting rooms are where our business of love and wonderment never comes to a stop. You will ignore the signal and disregard the station-master. But there is a price to pay for embracing such a life of a private, unhurried non-journey. The deodar darkness of the station turns into a macabre tribunal that exhibits us in our full, creaturely vulnerability. First to ourselves. And then to the world. A forlorn abjectness is our only fate. We genuflect. And an unconditional declaration is the only possible means to square with such stringent, unforgiving judgmental ways: না, না দয়া করে আমার দিকে আলো ফেলবেন না–/চোখে ব্যথা করে খুব–এমনিতেই আমি এরকমই ঘামি–/না, কোনও অসুবিধে হচ্ছে না আমার–লাই দিলে আমি মাথায়/উঠে যাই–আরও ধমকধামকের দরকার আছে আমার–/ বেত্শিক্ষকের