An Eight-year old's encounter with Enid Blyton and Brer Rabbit

Stories have been a part of my childhood from a very young age. From the prescribed rhymes and short stories that were part of the syllabus, my reading list expanded through the regular visits to the neighbourhood library. My memories of the library were not only the books I read,

but the journey itself. Walking through the quiet neighbourhood lined with giant trees on both sides that formed a canopy and the faint chirping of the sparrows and mynahs was the best part of the experience. The library nestled amidst the trees and the long spiral staircase that gave me the chills every time I had to climb it. But I didn’t mind it in the least. The end result -the vast array of books that lie in wait for me was more than enough to encourage me. I never had the chance to listen to the stories of my grandparents. But my mother made sure that I got a generous dose of books to read. It was these visits to the library where I would meet my 

very first friends – Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl, Richmal Crompton and Judy Blume. The stories they wrote belonged to a different time period. They belonged to a different cultural landscape. Enid Blyton’s stories take place in an English countryside where children solved mysteries and went on adventures, or in an elite British boarding school where girls played lacrosse and learnt horse-riding.

In the Faraway Tree series, the Enchanted Woods stories takes the reader to a fairy tale world of pixies and goblins, talking trees and animals. The protagonists, Jo Beth and Fannie discover a tree called the Magic Faraway Tree which takes them to strange, exciting 
places. They travel to the land of goblins, and wizards, the land of birthdays and in one instance they meet Goldilocks and the three Bears. In Enid Blyton’s version, Goldilocks lives with the bears in the same cottage which she first entered. Another important aspect of all Enid Blyton stories is the vivid imagery of food. In all the books I have read, I have not seen any author who described food the way she did. In most of her stories, food is an important prop for the plotline. Whether the characters are setting out to solve a mystery or having a midnight party, delicious food was in plenty:

  “She brought out a tin of Pop Cakes, which were lovely. As soon as you bit into them, they went pop! and you suddenly found your mouth filled with new honey from the middle of the   little cakes.”  

 

      In her stories, she not only describes pastries which every child would love, she vividly          depicts the food children would have for a picnic. This was not the usual sandwiches and      chips which one would expect but healthy food items such as radishes, lettuce, baked beans and hard-boiled eggs. I did not realize that lettuce was equivalent to cabbage or hard-boiled

eggs were just the normal eggs I had for breakfast. I learnt new words like larder, treacle pudding and ginger beer. Food was never a forgettable aspect in Enid Blyton. It played an equal role to the characters in her stories. Folk tales, songs and stories told by your grandparents are in the oral form. I did not get to listen to stories where I could sit in rapt attention and listen to a story where every sound, every word rises and falls with the expression and the intonations given by the storyteller. This is where I turned to folktale collections. Although it cannot replace the awe and excitement one feels while listening to a story, it was the one thing I had. It was through these books that I was introduced to Tenali Raman and Birbal;

Jataka Tales and the Panchatantra; Anansi the spider and Brer Rabbit. They described human follies and dilemmas in a way a child understands. Every character portrays human traits of greed, envy, stupidity, contempt, pride and kindness, contentment, happiness, wisdom, wit and intelligence. Folktales act as a mirror to the society where people see themselves being portrayed. It was through numerous folktale collections that I became aware of other cultures also. This

would not have been

possible in the oral form. Oral traditions would be concentrated on transmitting a part of one’s own culture or something that was part of ones’ culture but became obsolete over the years. The print expanded the reach of folk tales to a larger audience. As Ramanujan mentions, it led to the democratisation of literature. Along with this, translation helped bridge barriers of language and dialects in folk literature. We have folk tales from different communities, states and countries today. I would not have read the stories of Anansi the spider or Brer Rabbit, the two famed tricksters in folk literature if it wasn’t for this advancement in technology. Both of these were the most memorable characters I have read in the folk traditions. Anansi is a predominant character in Caribbean folk tales. The protagonist is a trouble-maker but is also clever and knows to put his wits to good use. This mythical hero appears in the form of a spider and tricks people. He is also known as the King of Stories. In one of the stories, Anansi asks his father Nyame, (Sky) to open the box of stories he kept with him. His father agrees to it only if Anansi performs certain tasks. Through his wits and ingenious problem-solving skills, Anansi completes the tasks and Nyame agrees to release the stories to the world:

“The people had no stories to tell because his father Nyame was hoarding them in a box. Anansi set about a plan to take them from his father…. Nyame told his son that if he could bring four creatures to him, he would trade Anansi the stories for them.”

Brer Rabbit stories has its origins in African-American folk tales. However, the protagonist is less empowered than Anansi. Oral traditions and children’s literature are a record of people’s past, a reflection on our present follies and acts as a reminder to rectify our mistakes in the future.
 

      

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

 

William Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist of all time in the history of English literature. He lived during the Elizabethan Era and earned praise and glory for his plays, known for their intense storylines, filled with passion, guilt, romance and terror which captivated the audience and continue to do so to this day. For a person who isn’t a voracious reader may not understand the language, theme and the setting of his works. But when we dig deeper, we realize that he presented the life of humans in all their vices and virtues. He never wanted to give a moral lesson to his readers through his works.

Nature of Shakespeare’s Plays

Unlike other playwrights of his time who used to deliver a message to the audience through their plays, William Shakespeare showed life in all its natural beauty. It had all the human emotions in its most passionate form. There was love, passion, betrayal, ambition, strength, resilience and so on.  His plays also used visual effects to depict terror and supernatural occurrences. The play Romeo and Juliet is an example of Shakespeare’s brilliant use of these dramatic techniques.

A brief introduction to the author

 William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon on 26^th April 1564, although the exact date of his birth is unknown.  His father was a notable figure in Stratford and it is believed that he was educated at Stratford Grammar School. At the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years older than himself. In 1585, he left Stratford for London. He soon became a member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Company, (known after the accession of James I, as the King’s Men). His first completely original play is believed to be Love’s Labour Lost. His non-dramatic works consist of two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece (1594).  Most of his plays were written for performance in public playhouses.

His plays can be divided into three groups – comedies, tragedies, and histories. The play Romeo and Juliet’ belongs to tragedy. It was Shakespeare’s first masterpiece. Though we don’t know its exact date, it is said to have been between 1592 and 1595.

Source of the plot

 Italy was the breeding ground for many great writers and had been a source of material for writers in England. Shakespeare set many of his plays in Italy. Romeo and Juliet is based on Arthur Brooke’s poem The Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet, an Italian story which Brooke found in a French translation. But, this is only a guess. However, Shakespeare was not an original playwright. He adapted many of the well-known stories of the day, which only seem ‘Shakespearean’ to us as the other works are not so popular compared to Shakespeare’s own version.

         

About the play

  Romeo and Juliet are famous as lovers the world over, and isa primarily a play about love. The theme of Romeo and Juliet is a live filled with passion. It is a story of hatred overcome by that love, old hate versus young love, taking no thought for the past and the future. And this love ends in death, thus heightening the intensity. It is an example of true love, and the balcony scenes with the lines:

                  ‘How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,

                    Like softest music to attending ears’

prove Shakespeare’s skill in wordplay. The depth of their love is clearly indicated through these lines. The atmosphere is one of passion and swiftness.  It is ideal love and we are made aware of its nature by the way in which Shakespeare differentiates it from other kinds of love so that his audience can examine relationships and further deepen their understanding of the trove between Romeo and Juliet. The play emphasizes on themes like love and hate, old and young, order and disorder

Compression of Time

The whole play is in a hurry. It is a play full of angry fights, intense passion and sudden

death. Shakespeare compresses the nine months’ action of Brooke’s poem into less than five days, in the interests of swiftness, power and unity of action. On Sunday, the play opens with a street fight. Romeo and Juliet first meet at a party the same night. After the party, Romeo gets into Capulets’ garden and from the ground talks to Juliet talks to Juliet at the window.

Monday: they are married in the afternoon. Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished, but he spends the night with Juliet. That night, Capulet arranges Juliet’s marriage with Paris for Thursday morning.

Tuesday: Romeo leaves Juliet. Juliet is told by her parents that she has to marry Paris. She then goes to Friar Lawrence. The wedding is postponed to the next morning. Before she goes to sleep, she takes the potion given to her by the Friar. On Wednesday, Juliet is discovered ‘dead’ and is taken to the family tomb. On Thursday, Romeo hears of Juliet’s death and buys poison. On Friday, in the early morning, he comes to the tomb. The rest of the play takes place before dawn.                                         

However, the play is not so swift. Juliet tells Romeo that their love is ‘too rash, too sudden’. When they next meet, the audience is given the impression that they are meeting after a long time. But it has only been a matter of hours. She has known him for only a couple of days. But the audience feels that they have been together for a long time. In fact, it is purely love at first sight.

Setting

A great number of Shakespeare’s plays are set in places abroad. But the play’s story is set in England. Nowadays, there is strict demand for accuracy in scenery, costumes, and the setting but back then, the life and spirit of a play mattered more than the place where it was staged.  People saw in the play their own life and experience.  Shakespeare’s audiences enjoyed blood and battle stuff and he tried to satisfy them. Like any other dramatist, he wanted people to spread the word that Romeo and Juliet was an exciting play. The play is written in a way that could please them. From the opening scene of a street fight to the duel, murder, and suicide in the last, the play captivated the audience.

Qualities of the two main characters: Romeo and Juliet

Romeo: Before the start of the play, Romeo has been moody and reserved. The lady whom he says he loves won’t love him back. At the time the play opens he goes out at night and locks himself up all day. This love is just an infatuation. It is not genuine. It was only when he met Juliet, he discovered true love.

Romeo enjoys exaggerating his problems. But when he is really in love, he keeps it to himself. He becomes a dreamer. The fact that his companions make so much of his changed humour shows that he must have been a jolly fellow in the earlier days. He was a charming young man, with lots of friends.  When love gets to his heart, life is real.

Juliet: When we first meet Juliet, she is a charming, timid person, an obedient daughter. She has lived a sheltered life, but when she falls in love she becomes brave and passionate. She has a strong mind, willing to stand up against her parents’ wishes. She falls in love with Romeo at first sight. But she is more practical than him.  Juliet loves Romeo deeply, but her feet are on the ground. It can be said that Juliet was selfish giving her family great worry in order to carry her own whims and fancies. But she loved her father and mother truly and her parents on the other hand, were forcing her to marry a person against her wishes.

Conclusion

There are different aspects of love in the play. There is the passionate love between Romeo and Juliet. There is the love between parents and children. The love in the Capulet family indicates to this love. The problem of law and order is also shown through the quarrel between the Capulets and the Montagues. On the whole, however it is the story of true love that can go beyond mere family feuds. Here, it is Romeo and Juliet who teach the elders in the play the meaning of true love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Paris to Delhi: The Making of a Revolution

                                                         

 May 1968. A fresh wave of protests erupted in Sorbonne University (then University of Paris) one of the elite universities in France. The students had gathered in the amphitheatre of the university to voice their resentment against a government whose

policies had led to widespread class discrimination ant kept nearly three-fourth of French

youth unemployed. It was a movement inspired by the free speech declaration and the counter-culture movement in the US during the 1960s. However, unlike the anti-war protests in America, the Paris uprising dealt with issues closer to home. Rather than a political movement, it was more of a social revolution as it brought together people who belonged to all walks of life.  It was a rare blend of the university graduates, shopkeepers, factory workers, clerks and many more. Although they faced distinct issues, they came together to form a coalition of diverse groups with a single objective. A student movement soon turned into a social uprising that challenged the existing power structures and brought the French economy to a standstill. The recent decision to celebrate the 50^th anniversary signifies the crucial role it played in restoring French democracy.    

   A student-driven movement

In the current scenario where student politics is being chased out from college campuses, shutting out any room for dissent, the 1968 French uprising has a great bearing on student life in India. French president Charles de Gaulle commented that conservative policies and an outdated academic curriculum meant a scarcity of employment opportunities for the common people. In addition, workers’ issues of long working hours and low wages combined to form an umbrella movement and gave a platform for the creative expression of public opinion. Dissent was expressed in the form of graffiti on walls and buildings. The slogan It is forbidden to forbid ( Ilest interdit d’interdire) was a reminder that civil rights were a citizen’s most valued asset. The protests posed a law and order situation in many parts of the city. However, it didn’t turn into a civil war as the government feared. The numerous strikes in factories and colleges signified the turbulent atmosphere of the period. It forced authorities to pay heed to the fears and anxieties of the people.

A new wave of communism

The Marxian ideology found its rightful place in the protests of May 1968. Before the uprising, the communists had already gained a stronghold over the French Parliament forming the far-Left bloc in France. Trade unions were seen as representatives of the working class and all was well – or so it seemed. It took an entire nation’s citizenry to show the real picture.                                                       

Where some are more equal than others

As far as French youth were concerned, true socialism was a thing of the past. Through the years, the Marxist ideology had been manipulated and tailored to suit the needs of a few.

Trade unions allowed little room for dissent. Majority opinions always prevailed. Moreover, the leaders of these trade unions were highly influential people, many of whom had direct contact with the members in the Parliament. Thus, a noble idea had fallen into the wrong hands crushing its very spirit. In a nation with acute class discrimination, where an unseen line divided the haves and the have-nots, the period from May 2 1968- June 23, 1968 was a new beginning. Every section of French society – workers, students, activists, women and minorities rallied around a common objective. Their slogan ‘All power to the imagination’ even attracted students from foreign universities who came in to support the cause. It shaped a generation of youth driven by a thirst for freedom. 

Student protests and the emergency

The Paris uprising had nothing similar to the student protests in India, but it had many common features with the Emergency. One reason was that the movement in France derived a formula which could be put to use for student-led political movements in India. The period during the Emergency provided perfect ground to practice this formula. In fact, the Emergency was one major cause for the rise of student politics in India. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s style of governance was considered authoritarian. Her decision to suspend the Constitution and assume all power proved to be the last straw. Strikes, lockdowns and hartals were common occurrences during this period. Many politicians and student activists were arrested. Those who escaped were forced into hiding. The student movement in France and the Emergency in India were more or less cast in the same mould. Both had a great impact on individual psyche and both ultimately restored true democracy to their countries.

Lessons to learn

Youth today have a lot to learn from the 1968 uprising. When self-styled patriots attempt to silence critics and writers and intellectuals in India are being targeted by vigilante groups for holding critical views of the government, it would and must remind us of the need to uphold one of the basic tenets of our constitution.