In these two volumes, an attempt has been made to deal with the study of folklore and the alternative modernities associated with it. The research papers closely examine how folk , classical and modern literatures exchange hands to enrich each other. The papers have taken well knit examples from the oral and written literatures of different regions of India with a few comparative studies from the world literatures. The books experiment with a flexible view of folk, not making folk a part of marginal literature. Folk is not something out there in a museum, it is a part and parcel of our lives, and thus, our mainstream literature. Thus, the modern texts in literature that have made explicit use of the folk to make it available to the readers today are also treated at par with the folk texts that have only the oral tradition, called the pure folk. The books examine the nature, concept and function of folk in modern Indian literature. These volumes would be of immense value for the literature teachers, researchers, folklorists, anthropologists, experts of social psychology marginal studies, dalit studies, developmental studies, culture critics, linguists and policy planners.
6 comments:
Thank You Sanjeev.
Kudos to Dr. Nandini Sahoo for her great achievement and contribution to folklore literature!
Prof. K. V. Dominic,
English Writer,Editor & Secretary of Guild of Indian English Writers, EdiTors and Critics (GIEWEC)
Congratulations to Dr. Nandini Sahu the 'writer with ideas' and compliments to Dr. Sudarshan Kcherry the publisher with a passion to promote Indian culture and literature.
BS Murthy,
Hyderabad
Thanks for putting your great effort in facilitating 'the little but great culture of folk' by writing these volumes.
Nandini Sahu's poems are always an inclusive panorama of the rainbow variety of experiences,mostly motivated by her longing for an identity. It is a mental map that she depicts in words in inky nights.She waits for silky sheets of sunlight clouds.She is relaxed a while in October Puri Beach.She is so engrossed in the beauty of the seashore that she discovers love , and compassions glowing , reflecting and refracting . The sea and the sand invite her. As April in Eliot's poem, October in Nandini's poem has an important place . The poet who in her earlier volume of poems SILENCE, felt that October is a dark night, in this volume she feels that in October : darkness dies, white prevails /amid / Silky sheets of sunlight clouds.
Never before we have seen Nandini being engaged in the soliloquy to speak out her soul. Waiting is a theme in Nandini, the woman and here she differs from Kamala Das who defies all social tenets in vengeful ire and grievance. Nandini is tolerant , suave and sophisticated in her waiting and expresses her sorrows indirectly through the symbol of a tree : The shady tree has always waited. The poignant tone of underlying pathos is deciphered through the picture of shadows : The shadows have only troubled me / playing hide and seek. Are the shadows merely symbols for her shadowy and vague memories of the past ? Sometimes the tone is romantic when she desperately cries out her unbearable pain : Can I ever write a love poem /for you?" The doe-eyed lady reels under an anxiety / born of a loveless life. The climax is reached in a poem If You Remember Mrityunjay where the poet unknowingly comes out of her citadel of restraints : I held you closely /and you smiled evocative. Sometimes the simple use of pronouns can be so effective : I and you , /you and I/ Remember Mrityunjay? The very name is significant because mrityunjay means one who has conquered death, Love conquers death. The poet sings of deathless love. The quest for the oasis of love is infinite like the sandy shores of the Dry Sands Beyond. In all the sixty six poems the poet is equally graceful and her seeming subjectivity gives way to philosophical serenity too often with the passionate getting submerged into the spirituality when she can utter : Time ,waiting moves slowly. The waiting theme recurs again and again reminding us of Milton and Emily Dickinson's poems : They also serve God who stand and wait.In the last poem of the volume there is an urge for a new start : Can I search /For the new pastures now? Nandini wants to gather herself from the destroyed sand shore of life. In this third volume of her poems Nandini is more mature in her use of symbols and images , plethora of which are there scattered like pearls mingled with the broken oysters.Sorrows , loneliness and the stark rapture ending only in a chill awakening of being a human. smiles and sunshine are an occasional episode in the tragic sullenness of the drama of her life.It may seem that Nandini is obsessed with intense pains but, her greatness as a poet lies in her absorption of the subjective and finally the tone reflecting personal anguish and agonies is transcended as in the poem Twice Born , Who may Never Die which ends with the lines : They know / that deep down my soul/triumphant/ I have put out the fire / and filled the scars.This is how Nandini's poems are born in the inky midnights as she says in A Poem , Tonight : Carving out a comfortable corner/ for myself/ designed by someone/I am but trying to feel the ground/beneath us. Yes, ground is never forgotten by Nandini even in her wildest dreams . Type of the wise she soars but never roam,True to the kindred points of heaven and home .In all the sixty poems of the volume this feeling of the ground is there although Nandini's eyes never miss to see the beauteous butterflies flaunting their hues, and fairest flowers enticing the gloomy glens
Nice article .Informative ...
Post a Comment