A Comparative Study of Agha Shahid Ali and Imtiaz Dharker

Agha Shahid Ali and Imtiaz Dharker are the two most popular and accomplished poets of the twentieth century. The exploration of their poetry reveals a diasporic world in which the dark forces of life threaten to destroy any vestiges of redemption. They convey their complex inner states of mind. That is why there is a great deal of diaspora in their poems. They spend most of their life in self-exile alienation in West. Imtiaz Dharker currently divides her time between the United Kingdom and Mumbai. She often describes herself as a Scottish Muslim Calvinist, born in Lahore and adopted by India. Ali divides his time between U.S.A. and Delhi and Kashmir. Their life and work were similarly affected by their state of being “exile”.  The focus of this paper will be the comparative study of Agha Shahid Ali and Imtiaz Dharker

“I” of “I SPEAK FOR THE DEVIL” Imtiaz Darker’s Poem

Imtiaz Dharker has not allowed her orthodox religion to stop her from the expression of her potentialities in her poetry in the form of confessional mode. No wonder, her rebel­lion has caused a tremble among the so called guardians of orthodox re­ligion and the custodians of common masses. Her concern in her poetry particularly in “I speak for devil” has been the existential pain of humanity as revealed mainly through woman’s relationship with man and the male-dominated society. She writes with frankness and openness unusual in the Indian background but in the view point of West. She exploits the confessional mode in order to discover the images that evoke the joy and frustration of achieved womanhood. The adverse circumstances have rendered her vision tragic and melancholy, her upbringing by Islamic parents, and her marriage though with a Hindu or English man of her own choice in order to remove her parental control. She expresses about these adverse circumstances in her famous poem “I speak for the devil”. This paper will try to find the first person “I” of the collection under same name

Mehjoor: The Poet of Kashmir

Mehjoor is one of the most prominent pioneers of Modern Kashmiri poetry. He initiated his poetic career in 1912 by writing in Persian and Urdu, but the circumstances and forceful patriotic movement turned Mahjoor’s attention to write in Kashmiri. He realized that his artistic desires would come only if he produce a literary work in his own mother tongue. The remarkable part played by Mehjoor in bringing a result was to make Kashmiri poetic medium more natural. He expanded the boundaries of Kashmiri poetry by including in it the themes of nature, common life and patriotism. He was a poet of great beauty who summoned the nature and people of Kashmir in his poems

Kashmiri Literature from 14th to 16th Century

The Kashmir Literature was firstly inaugurated by two great personalities of spirituality “Lal Ded” and Shaikh-Ul- Aalam. No doubt there are some literary works in Kashmiri before these two poets, but the poetry of Lal Ded and Shik-Ul-Aalam considered as earliest literary work in Kashmiri. Before them “Shati Kant” writes “Mahnie Prakash” in twelfth century is a work of 94 Vakhs followed by Sanskrit translation. Shiti Kant followed the philosophy of Trika Shivism and used Sanskrit as a medium of expression

Quest of Identity in Eugene O’ Neil’s The Hairy Ape

Quest is one of the important Archetypes of literature. It is ubiquitous in literature from ancient times. The focus of the present article is to study the play “The Hairy Ape” written by Eugene O’Neill as a narrative of quest of belongingness and identity. The aim is to show how all the elements of quest narrative are present in the plot of this play. The play is the quest narrative in the backdrop of modern civilization. The sense of identity and belongingness is like the Holy Grail quest. All the elements of the quest plot are realistic in place of fantastic. Being expressionistic play all the depths of heart and mind are given an overt expression. This article tries to analyze the quest of identity in The Hairy Ape by Eugene O’ Neil

Symbolic significance of Imtiaz Dharker’s poem “Leaving Fingerprints”

Imtiaz Dharker although spent diasporic life willingly but she never forgot her motherland and always lived in the memories of Indian culture. Her poems show that she was pulled by her motherland again and again. Her poems prove that she was not only emotionally but also physically alienated from her birth place, Pakistan, and adapted country India. This is the reason that she writers most of her poems both about subcontinent India i.e. present Pakistan or India. Her poetry proves that her heart was deeply rooted in Indian culture and society. It also proves that she faced a lot of identical problems in UK and that’s why she felt alienated. Keeping all these things in view, it is very essential to see how Dharker was alienated from great Indian culture, how she felt rootlessness in a foreign country and how she proved herself as a true daughter of subcontinent   India. Her consciousness about Indian society and culture brought her recognization all over the world. Therefore, it seems necessary to appraise her personality based on her poetry in this context.  The story of Dharker’s search for an identity is in agreement with modern culture and demands of modern life which is expressed by her well known book “Leaving Fingerprints (2001).  This book has deeper symbolic significance as is indicated from the title of the book. The title of this book works like a sign board which gives proper direction. So, the focus of this paper will be the about the deeper and symbolic significance of its very title i.e. “Leaving Fingerprints”

Blended Narrative in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

Noble prize winner Toni Morrison has achieved a place in the annals of world literature. One of her best-known novels The Bluest Eye has always surprised the critics. The innovation in terms of narrative using different techniques that can be defined as blended narrative has been the concern for her major critics. This article makes the analysis of this narrative techniques and innovations employed by Toni Morison in her literary masterpiece, The Bluest Eye. This article defends the different narrative techniques employed and their proper purpose at a particular time. The author has used Dick and Jane primer as an epigraph to the novel in three different ways and as ironical titles to different chapters. The author has used different narrators to serve the specific purposes. The novel begins with Claudia as a narrator, and then there are sections of zero focalized narrations and some sections of female narration in first person narrator. However, one is surprised why does the writer employ this technique? This article tries to answer this

Existential Angst & its Scio-Psychological dimensions in Plath’s Poetry

The post holocaust threat precipitated a deep scene of despair and nihilism among the masses in general and poets in particular. This forced poets to compose a distinctive kind of poetry to account for the general bewilderment in the contemporary times. As a witness to the contemporary realities that sparked violence and agony. Plath attempted a unique poetry that thematized the survival struggles of a traumatized human being. The painful digestion of the socio-cultural problems and sufferings culminated in her alienation and estrangement. This paper attempts to analyze the cause that breads a strong anxiety in her life. It also undertakes to probe the socio-psychological and existential dimensions of her angst.&nbsp

Sense of Rootlessness and Alienation in Chitra Banerjee’s Arranged Marriage

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, is an Indian-American English writer who traveled to USA in 1976 at the age of 19.  So, she has firsthand experience of diasporic life.  She belongs to the group of Indian English writers who appeared on the literary vista with a postcolonial sense of rootlessness and alienation. Her status as a South Asian writer in English writing is not only diverse but also recognized. The main theme of her writing is to express the life of the Indian immigrants in the America who feel alienation. Most of her main characters are young females who immigrated to America from their motherland India for the betterment of their life; but they face problems and are not able to adjust in the Western culture.    She tries to show the reflection of Indian women who have tried to incorporate the foreign culture in their exile life but their culture and tradition haunts them always. In her works, there is ambulation of Americanization and Indianization. The transformation in characterization becomes lucid in her works.  This Research paper focuses on the troubles and the problems of rootlessness and alienation faced by the immigrants in a foreign land through her important novel “Arranged Marriage”

She is from this Country, Imtiaz Dharker reply through her Poem “They’ll Say, ‘She Must Be From Another Country”

Imtiaz Dharker, for the first time introduced a strong personal voice in Indian English poetry as no other woman poet had done earlier. Her themes go beyond the traditionally accepted thought modes and embrace vast hidden areas of experience and complexity of feeling. Her Poetry is not merely Indian like others but a passionate reply of the universal experience of her alienated life. Her concern has been the existential pain of humanity as revealed mainly through woman’s relationship with man and the male-dominated society in which she is thought as a stranger. Dharker writes with frankness and openness unusual in the Indian background but in the view point of West. Most Indian poets in English do not have the candour of Imtiaz Dharker in creativity analysing and evaluating their experience. She exploits the confessional mode in order to expose the country that evokes frustration and disappointment for women and wants to discover the country that will bring joy and happiness for them. The adverse circumstances have rendered her vision tragic and melancholy, her upbringing by Islamic parents, and her marriage firstly with a Hindu man after his death with an English man in order to remove her parental control.  Her dissatisfaction with her ancestral religion and diaspiric life sharpened her consciousness.  She decided to air out her grievances through the poetic medium, by the poem “I speak for the devil” because many unpalatable things can be said in this medium without incurring the wrath of powerful persons. The research paper will focus Dharker’s poem “They’ll Say, ‘She Must Be From Another Counry’”