Quoting Dr. Ambedkar from his article “The Rise and Fall of Hindu Women”, he argues that Hindu religion through its religious texts, such as the Manusmriti always degraded women. He thought of Manusmriti as a text which was anti-women and anti-Dalit text, where women and Dalits are degraded. Hindu scriptures like Ramayana & Mahabharata have women characters who are bold in their ways like Draupadi, Kaikeyi, even Sita for that matter and her decision to go back to mother Earth instead of giving a test of purity are instances where the woman is not agreeing to the norm laid by the society. This sort of portrayal is not given emphasis by our preachers. The character of Kaikeyi is not given any importance as she is a woman of ambition, same for Draupadi.
Bharati was settling for “fluidity, self-invention, blue jeans, and T-shirts”(268). Bharati decided to be a part of a new community by marrying someone of a different community and living an American lifestyle. Unlike Mira, Bharati has adapted to the American community and has become a part of it. However, like Mira, she too has not felt welcomed in a community. Bharati compares Mira’s situation in America to one that she faced in Canada, where the government turned against the immigrants.
(Mukherjee 282). Bharati’s marriage outside her own ethnic group and willingness to move to “every part of North America” represents her amenable attitude towards change itself. Mira comes to America in search of good education and economic opportunities, however, she refuses to acclimate American pop-culture into her thoughts, actions, and perceptions. Mira’s closed mindset requires her to live a stagnant lifestyle in which she has “stayed rooted in one job, one city, one house, one ancestral culture, one cuisine…” (Mukherjee 282) and never provokes a change in whom she could become. The authors notion towards Mira symbolizes the fact that Mira ignores anything that calls her away from her ethnic identity.
Bharati’s culture influenced her in a different way. She felt strange and isolated from the world in her Indian culture and when she arrived in America she felt free. Bharati neglected her culture and traded it for the American
Ryan Chiew (9TH) History essay: Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) Mahatma Gandhi was a lawyer in South Africa and he came back to India in 1915. Upon his return to India, he set about organizing peasants, farmers, and urban laborers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination and he was the preeminent leader of Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Also, he led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women 's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability and he employed nonviolent civil disobedience. Mahatma Gandhi had also played an important role in the gaining of independence of India from Britain as he had also initiated many different campaigns that led to it for example the salt march, the Satyagraha campaign and he had negotiated with the Cabinet Mission which recommended the new constitutional structure which had all contributed greatly. He had also assumed leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921.
However it can be argued that this amalgamation was not, and is not, peaceful or healthy but it cannot be denied that it has been at least on the line of tolerance. Indian English literature is a natural product of the Indianization of English language to express national sensibility. Thus Indian English literature is an outcome of eventual and eventful encounters between India-her society and culture on one hand
And the results are quite fascinating for the modern readers who find a new perspective in Gokhale’s rendering of the epic Shakuntala. Gokhale says in her book In Search of Sita, Revisiting Mythology, Mythology in India is not just an academic or historical subject; it is vital and living topic of contemporary relevance. The complex social, political and religious attitudes of ‘modern’ India cannot be understood without an understanding of our myths and their impact on the collective faith of the people. (XIV) The myths have a controlling effect on us even today. Shashi Deshapande in her article “Telling our own stories” says: Our epics and puranas are still with us and among us…over the years they have been reinvented, reshaped and regionalized.
As Virmati does, her daughter too hates her mother, she too do not want to become like her mother. Though Virmati loves her too much, her daughter Ida never understands her mother while she was alive just like Virmati. In her “Family Structure in Manju Kapur’s Home” Maneeta Kahlon has rightly observed: Ida becomes the typical daughter of a ‘difficult daughter’ Virmati. She could not develop an understanding with her mother in her lifetime and after Virmati’s death; this realization engulfs her with guilt. (Kahlon 3) The strained relationship and frustrations about life expressed in the following assertion of Ida, she asserts: “My mother tightened her reins on me, as I grew older; she said it was for my own good.
The day after he delivered that speech, The New York Critique wrote, "Swami Vivekananda is an orator by divine right, and his strong, intelligent face in its picturesque setting of yellow and orange was hardly less interesting than those earnest words, and the rich, rhythmical utterance he gave them." The New York Herald wrote, "Vivekananda is undoubtedly the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions. After hearing him we feel how foolish it is to send missionaries to this learned nation." The speech marked the beginning of Western interest on Indian values. The world celebrates World Brotherhood Day on September 11 as a mark of respect to that model
Recent Indian fiction has been trying to give expression to the Indian experience of modern predicaments. This literary movement being fortified by the overwhelming output of novelists has distinguished itself as a remarkable force in the World fiction. The contributions of women writers cannot go unnoticed. In fact the works of women writers constitute a major segment of the contemporary Indian Writing in English. Today women are seen establishing their identity in almost all walks of life and they have heralded a new consciousness in the realm of Literature