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K. R. S. IYENAHAR write in Indian English writing "Freedom had come indeed, but it was not exactly the freedom that our writers of yesterday had dreamed or sung about or the freedom that generations of patriots had visualized and striven for. It was a flawed freedom born in the hour of communal disturbances of unprecedented ferocity and unbelievable bestiality. Tens of millions crossed the border, homes were shattered, lives were wrecked and human values were crushed under foot".
W. H. Auden has also written a very harsh poem on Partition wherein he lashed verbal - whip on the British officer. Who did Auden find responsible for the partition and massacre of millions of Indians (Hindu, Sikh and Muslims). First a brief introduction of W. H. Auden.
🔵 W. H. AUDEN 🔵
W. H. AUDEN was an English American poet. His poetry was noted for it's stylistic and technical achievements, it's engagement with politics, Morals Love and religion and it's variety in tone, form and content.
🔵MAJOR WORKS OF AUDEN 🔵
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🔵PARTITION 🔵
Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition,
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
"Time", they had briefed him in London, is short. It's too late.
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate :
The only solution now lies in separation.
The viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letters,
That he less you are seen in his company the better, so we've arranged to provide you with other accommodations.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with but the final decision must rest with you.
Shut up in a lonely mansion,
With police night and day.
Patrolling the gardens to keep the assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fat,
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date.
And the Census returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect,
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven week I was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided. The next day he sailed for England,
Where he could quickly forget,
The case, as a good lawyer must.
Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his club, that he might get shot.
- W. H. AUDEN
AUDEN'S poem alludes to the period in the late 1940's. When the people of India finally won independence from Britain. However, severe tensions between Hindus and Muslims led to the formation of two separate countries:India and Pakistan. At least half a million people lost their lives in the conflicts leading up to the creation of these two countries. However, although Auden's poem obviously deals primarily with this particular situation, the poem is also relevant to many other recent territorial disputes between conflicting religious or ethnic groups. The most obvious and perhaps the most dangerous of such conflicts is the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinians in the Middle East.
🔵THIS BLOODY LINE 🔵
This Bloody Line. This Bloody Line is a short film written and directed by RAM MADHAVANI. The film is set in a typical English drawing room decorated with Raj memorabilias, books and photographs. The nearly blind Radcliff is played by Martin Hodgson. It's a quite morning shattered by the ring of a telephone. The caller tells Radcliff that a poem has been published in the newspaper about him and since his eyesight is failing, Radcliff asks his wife to read it. She does, so over a cup of tea, skipping the verses that derided his work, but Radcliff catches on and realises that nearly two decades later the pain hasn't lessened.
ANTONIA : "IF A LINE WAS DRAWN THROUGH THE ROOM, I WOULD COME OVER TO THE OTHER SIDE ".
THIS line gives us massage of unity. What we were at one point that we could go over. The brilliant barrister Radcliff was given the task of parting Indian, a land he knew nothing about and had never set eye on. Radcliff considered it as a duty to his government.Radcliff - "DO IT IN THE SERVICE OF YOUR COUNTRY". WELL I COULDN'T SAY NO TO MY COUNTRY, COULD I? "
When he left India, never to return to the land he divided, he realised better than anyone the grief,mass migration, violence and bloodshed his tracings on the map had caused. His only souvenir was disillusionment.With the job he even refused his fee of 3,000 pounds and he retired to a quite life in England.
With the additional footage from the films division on herds of people migrating, corpes stucked by the roadside burning cities and the nib of a fountain pen racing across a map to make it's tryt with destiny.
THE movie shows light on Radcliff's perspective and repent. Here we can say that Nation made him a Villain, he was completely unaware of India but still he did his job for the sake of his nation. This Bloody Line is a film that should be watched by people on both sides of the divide.
🔵DESH EK RAG HAI 🔵
"आपको अपना राष्ट्र मुबारक,
मुजे तो अपना देश चाहिये "
"(YOU KEEP YOUR NATION, I
JUST WANT MY COUNTRY.) "
Popular Hindi poet BHAGWAT RAWAT wrote these lines about ten years ago in, "DESH EK RAG HAI" to explore the contesting ideas of "राष्ट्र "and" देश ". Just in the time for the Republic Day, Rawat's family turned the poem into a video with TIGMANSHU DHULIA, RATNA PATHAK SHAH and RASIKA DUGGAL emoting the verses.
For the video, Rawat's granddaughter, PARUL RAWAT, who is also a writer worked as a creative consultant. MALHAR SALIL directed the recoding and the poet's daughter SHRUTI RAWAT played sitar in the back ground.
Set in a dialogic formate, the poem examines, the essence of the words " देश" and "राष्ट्र". The poem begins with Rawat's desire to give a Rupblic Day speech in the name of country and not the nation. The poem, as Rawat clarifies, isn't a literal analysis of the two words but what they entail in their separate contexts. "राष्ट्र " according to Rawat boasts of the 21 gun salute that says "सावधान" (be aware) while "देश" is a musical raag that only sings of unity in diversity (अनेकता મે एकता).
The poem comes at a time when the language of politics is with aggressive nationalism with using the word" राष्ट्र " at the center. The poem problematies the idea of nation we take utmost pride in and the country we have forgotten.
🔵SHITALA SATAM, RELIGION VS SCIENCE ;NON - ACCEPTANCE OF INTELLECTUALS.
➡SHITALA is a folk deity worshiped by many faiths in the Indian subcontinents, notably in North India, West Bengal, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The incarnation of Supreme goddess DURGA. She cures poxes, sorse, ghouls, pustuals and diseases. On the day of SHITALA SATAM people east cold food to worksheep the devi SHITALA.
🔵RELIGION VS SCIENCE 🔵
The conflict between religion and science is what naturally occurs to our minds. When we think of this subject, it seems as though during the last half century, the results of science and the belief of religion had come into a position of frank disagreement from which there can be no escape except by abandaning either the clear theory of religion or accepting the theory of scinse by using rational thinking. Religion makes us rigid and orthodox and forces us to accept what is written or said by the God. While science makes us knowledgeable and leads us to freedom of thinking, the art of knowing and questioning.
🔵INOCULATION VS VACCINATION ;NON - ACCEPTANCE :🔵
Inoculation means an act or procces or an instance of including. The introduction of a pythagen or antigen into a living organism to stimulate the production of antibodies "Tikah" in Hindi. It was a very painful process.
🔵Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system to develope protection from a disease. In comparison of Inoculation it is more easy and less painful proses. We must thank Dr. EDWARD JENNER for that.
(Vaccination)
We have to pity EDWARD JENNER, he developed a vaccination for smallpox, saved countless lives and eradicated one of the greatest scourages of humanity. Yet, he was accused of conducting "UNETHICAL EXPERIMENTS".
From Sir Isaac Newton, to Edward Jenner, to Salman Rashdi, to Ravish Kumar (many more) all suffered from non - acceptance. BUT there are also some people who used their minds and rational thinking rather than their ignorance and beliefs. It is the law of society every person who wants to do something new must first become the victim of the rage, shallow thinking and falls beliefs of the society.
EXAMPLES :
THANK YOU...
Well elaborated. Good use of images.
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