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Showing posts from August 2, 2014

South Indian Filter Coffee with Amma by Julie Sahni

This chapter of our textbook appears to be written for non-Indian people, as we see when the authors writes the English version of the word before the Hindi one, as in "elixir 'amrita'", "creamy pudding kheer", "jaggery gur", "mother, Amma" and the unfunny joke: "form an asana (in my language it means twist into a pretzel!)" She tries too hard to get the reader to relate to the magic of the milk-related memories of her childhood, and her attachment to her mother, but for reasons I can't place my finger on, fails, and fails miserably at that - succeeding only in getting us mildly irritated. Perhaps it is the pretentious Nigella tone of the text, or the occasional lapses in meaningful sentence-formation: "She just isn't fond of it, but obsessed with it." Also, there is the issue of her over-zealous description of everything. One question that caught my attention: Examine the interconnected themes of memo...

Lajwanti by Rajinder Singh Bedi

Here is my write-up (assignment) (imperfect) (scored 15 on 20) (done for the sake of doing it) (many apologies) : The chapter Lajwanti by Rajinder Singh Bedi is set in the wake of the India-Pakistan Partition – specifically, the abduction of women on either side of the border. During the Partition, tens of thousands of Hindus and Muslims were forced to pack and leave, because suddenly, allegiance to one’s country was based on religion. Families who had been living on the “wrong” side of the border since generations had to migrate, at moment’s notice, to their “homeland”. In the midst of all this pain, anguish, separation and large-scale identity crises, displaced people began attacking the “enemies” – through thefts, violence and abductions, as was the case with the protagonist Sunder Lal, and his wife Lajwanti, who was abducted. In brief, the story Lajwanti is as such: Sunder Lal, after losing his wife Lajwanti to abductors, and abandoning all hope of finding her again, pu...