The Mechanics of Writing

This Blog-post is a response to the thinking activity task 'Mechanics of Writing' given by our professor made Megha Trivedi ma'am. 

What is the Mechanics of Writing? 

In composition, writing mechanics are the conventions governing the technical aspects of writing, including spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and abbreviations. Getting your main points together can be a challenge, and one solution is to put together a draft of the main ideas before writing. Some writing textbooks also include issues related to usage and organization under the broad heading of mechanics. 

"Teachers using a traditional, product-oriented approach tend to focus on the formal mechanical and technical aspects of writing while paying little attention to the individual writer's communicative purposes. Thus with this approach, there is a danger that, for many children, writing will become an exercise in formal mechanics divorced from personal content and intentions."

Joan Brooks McLane and Gillian Dowley McNamee, Early Literacy. Harvard University Press, 1990 (www.thoughtco.com)

Video 1. Academic Writing by Kalyan Chattopadhyay

In this video, the resource person delivered an expert talk on the Mechanics of Writing in Research Methodology. He talked about the importance of linguistic markers to identify formal and informal writing. He also shared his views on Critical Writing.

Formal and Informal Language:(www.touro.edu)

What is the difference between formal and informal language?

Formal and informal language serve different purposes in written communications depending on the reader (Audience) and reason for writing (Purpose). The tone, the choice of words, and the way the words are put together vary between the two different styles.

Formal language is less personal than informal language. It is used when writing for professional or academic purposes like graduate school assignments. Formal language does not use colloquialisms, contractions, or first-person pronouns such as “I” or “We.”

Informal language is more casual and spontaneous. It is used when communicating with friends or family either in writing or in conversation. It is used when writing personal emails, text messages, and some business correspondence. The tone of informal language is more personal than formal language.

Some notes were taken while listening to the lecture: 

- Formal Vocabulary, posing, exercising

- you do not argue strongly 

- formal language has the passive voice, Maybe, perhaps - language markers should be used

- passive voice + Objective language

- Topical Sentences

- supportive sentences

- concluding sentences - summary of your earlier argument, do not repeat topical sentences

- signally expression, like- however, indeed, because of, because

- in concluding sentences, should not repeat Topical sentences, do not use 'I think, 'I mean markers

- addressing your question and trying to conduct your research

- careful thoughts

- analysis

- comparison - discussion making

- question- why should I agree with a particular critic? 

- deal specifically with the most seminal/critical opinion. 

Video 2. Academic Writing: The Basics by Atanu Bhattacharya

In this video, the resource person talked about the Basis of Academic Writing. In this video, the speaker gave example and explain how we should not afraid of academic writing, He named two books, 1. The Scale:The Harmless proof, Book: Intellectual Impostures by Alan Sokal & Jean Bricmot. 2. The Publication Scale: Not so Harmless Book: The Emperor of all Maladies - A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. 

A Few Takeaways 

- writing has material effects

- Avoid massive jargonization 

- Research and publication ethics

- Carefully choose the topic

Introduction last

-Writing it up: a few tips

-Create an indexed literature review

-Be sure of the triangulated methods

-DO NOT repeat the same arguments

-Use available digital tools

-Follow the literature

Digital Tools for Reference Management: 

Zotero, Mendeley, MS word

Summing up

- Linguistic choices - the "pitching" of the paper/dissertation/thesis

-Discourse choices - how do we organize it, lines of argument, etc.

-Topic choices - availability/non-availability of material; synchronic/diachronic

-Ethical choices - plagiarism, etc.

(from speakers presentation slides)

Video 3. The Mechanics of Writing by Atanu Bhattacharya

The final part delivered by the resource person Atanu Sir is about the mechanics of writing in research methodology. 

Formulating Propositions/ Defining

Formulating a proposition/ defining often takes the following linguistic form:

Key term + verb (be)/ is defined as/ can be defined as/ may be defined as/ is often defined as + [in] which/that/where/ when + defining features

Here's an example:

The program of gynocritics is to construct a female framework for the analysis of women's literature, to develop new models based on the study of female experience, rather than to adapt male models and theories.

Genre: Classification (Swales's CARS Model)

Definition

Purpose

Justification

Literature Review

Method

Argument

Conclusion

Paraphrasing: 

Avoid repeating yourself

Avoid quoting someone else exactly

Paraphrasing

Change your vocabulary (and do not repeat)

Develop your own 'voice' in your writing

Introduction

the rationale

the thesis statement (or the topic sentence)

contextualizing material

a statement to gain the reader's interest

a basic definition

Noun Phrases and Nominalisations:

- In 1835, Lord Macaulay who was an essayist, historian, and colonial administrator, produced his 'Minute on Education'.

- This report focuses on countries that have high birth rates.

- In Britain in 1807 a bill was defeated which would have brought elementary education to everyone.

- Many older people lived in rural areas which meant that they did not have access to good healthcare.

- This information enables the formulation of a new theory.

Stance: 

- The internet and the World Wide Web have provided a new medium for culture, generally labeled cyberculture, because it exists in cyberspace.

- The internet and the Web made possible a culture free of many of the constraints that operated in other media.

- It may be argued that Sherry Turkle (1997) supports the view that virtual subjects can become free of themselves.

- Arguably, a 'techno power spiral' has brought about control by a technical elite.

Hedging Language:

Academic texts frequently discuss theories, evaluate evidence, and propose solutions, and mostly these things are not absolute facts. This means that authors often "hedge" or soften what they say to avoid sounding too certain. They use modal verbs (can, may), verbs (seem, appear), adverbs (arguably, significantly), adverbials (on occasion, to some extent), using impersonal structures (it, there), etc.

Petals of Blood

This Blog-post is a response to the thinking activity task on the novel 'Petals of Blood' given by our professor Yesha Bhatt ma'am. To know more, CLICK HERE.

About the Author: 

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, currently Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, was born in Kenya, in 1938 into a large peasant family. He was educated at Kamandura, Manguu and Kinyogori primary schools; Alliance High School, all in Kenya; Makerere University College (then a campus of London University), Kampala, Uganda; and the University of Leeds, Britain. (from Official Website of the Author)

His popular Weep Not, Child (1964) was the first major novel in English by an East African. As he became sensitized to the effects of colonialism in Africa, Ngugi adopted his traditional name and wrote in the Bantu language of Kenya’s Kikuyu people.(from britannica.com)

About the Novel: 

Petals of Blood reflects the many internal journeys Ngugi had made over the years, up to writing the book. It is a different book from his earlier work, with more complex characters, a sharper political, mental and cultural landscape, harder rhythms, deeper themes, It is tighter. more intense, driven like a racing car over a well-beaten track that leaves no doubt as to his skill, his determination, his destination or destiny It reflects the endless wars he had fought and survived, and the endless wars he saw ahead of him He had sloughed, leaving behind, a part of him that was too worn out for the new skirmishes, and armed himself with a new vision imbued with urgency and an uncompromising stand, as if he was declaring his own state of emer gency because time had not healed the wounds inflicted on Kenya's masses who had fought so heroically but had been so bitterly betrayed The Kenya Ngugi writes about, the Kenya that nobody can take away from him, is the 'Kenya of the working people of all nationalities and their heroic struggle against domination by nature and other humans over the centuries' It is a huge Kenya, trampled by earlier colonial raconteurs like Robert Ruark and Karen Blixen, who celebrated the settler culture of 'legalized brutality, fear, silence, oppression' (It is a Kenya whose face we see reflected in Ilmorog, the centre of action for Petals of Blood Ngugi chooses a barren, drought-stricken part of Kenya) where farmers and herders, like their ancestors before them, are battling the elements on the one hand, and politicians who have abandoned them to their fate on the other The journey of Ilmorog is the journey of Kenya after independence when it donned neocolonial clothes and put the interests of foreigners and traitors first and aban doned the people who had suffered and died for the land. The question of landys very important in the book, as in Ngugi's earlier books.(Land is presented as salvation, as a soul, as a woman, as God, the subject of prophecy, the basis of cultural and political identity) There was nothing people would not do to grab or regain land. Ngugi revists the issue in Devil on the Cross where in Ilmorog a clique of thieves and robbers, former businessmen, are celebrating theft and robbery on a grand scale and are working towards a more efficient system of taking people's land and other goods and resources. Both books breathe the same burning, zealous spirit of concern for a country where the political élite gorge themselves to surfeit as the peasants and workers continue to languish in misery, in prison, on the periphery and where 'women's thighs are the tables on which contracts are signed'

In a world where money has been elevated to the status of world religion and where globalization, meaning the sanctified domination of the world by rich corporations, is seen as a panacea for all problems economic, Ngugi is a writer to cherish for warning, witnessing and pounding on the locked doors of the psyche, especially as for a chilling while it was thought that the end of the Third World War, cynically called the Cold War, would be the end of writers who do not glorify the rich - that they would be cremated along with the remains of the communist empire. Ngugi is sitting pretty because for him history is not some dead skunk reeking to high heaven of centuries of despair, but a mammoth beast, a terrible growler that makes hearts tremble when it bellows for change, change, change, struggle, struggle, struggle. Ngügi has spent most of his life wrestling with the essential issues of life in general and Kenya in particular and has come out of the ring with the definitive African book of the twentieth century. Karibu Ilmorog, Karibu Kenya, Karibu Afrika. - Moses Isegawa, June 2001

A note on the first chapter of the novel (Interrogation of all characters)

There are four parts in the novel, 

Part One: Walking 

Part Two: Towards Bethlehem 

Part Three: To Be Born 

Part Four: Again...La Luta Continua!

Before the start of the first part, there are about four horsemen of the apocalypse:

And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and he that 

sat thereon had a bow and there was given unto him a crown 

and he came forth conquering, and to conquer ...

And another horse came forth, a red horse and to him that s

at thereon it was given to take peace from the earth, that they should

slay one another and was there given unto him a great

sword... And I saw, and behold/ a black horse, and he that sat thereon

had a balance in his hand And I saw, and behold, a pale horse: and he that sat

upon him, his name was Death And there was given unto them authority over the fourth part of 

earth, to kill with sword and with famine, and with death.

Revelation, Chapter 6 To know the meaning CLICK HERE.

Another is by Walt Whitman:(to know about the poet, CLICK HERE)

The people scorn'd the ferocity of kings... 

But the sweetness of mercy brew'd destruction,

          and the frighten'd monarchs come back; 

Each comes in state, with his train - hangman, 

         priest, tax-gatherer,

Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.

Interrogation of all characters: 

The first part starts with police cops and the character Munira. Ngugi Wa pointed to every character in five numbers and in every conversation, we learn about their role or passion in the novel. Here is their introductory part: 

1.Munira: 

Are you Mr Munira? the short one asked. He had a star-shaped scar above the left brow.

'Yes.'

'You teach at the New Ilmorog Primary School?' "And where do you think you are now standing?'

Ah, yes. We try to be very sure Murder, after all, is not irio or ugali 'What are you talking about?"

'You are wanted at the New Ilmorog Police Station 'About?'

'Murder, of course - murder in Ilmorog.'

The tall one who so far had not spoken hastened to add 'It is nothing much, Mr Munira Just routine questioning 'Don't explain You are only doing your duty in this world. But let me put on my coat'

They looked at one another, surprised at his cool reception of the news. He came back carrying the Holy Book in one hand 'You never leave the Book behind, Mr Munira,' said the short one, impressed, and a little fearful of the Book's power.

'We must always be ready to plant the seed in these last days before His second coming. All the signs - strife, killing, wars, blood prophesied here. 

2.Abdulla: 

Abdulla sat on a chair outside his hovel in the section of Ilmorog called the New Jerusalem. He looked at his bandaged left hand. He had not been kept long at the hospital. He felt strangely calm after the night's ordeal. But he still could not understand what had really happened. Maybe in time, he thought - but would he ever be able to explain this fulfilment of what had only been a wish, an intention? How far had he willed it? He raised his head and saw a police constable looking at him.

3. Wanja: 

A police officer went to the hospital where Wanja had been admitted I am afraid you cannot see her, said the doctor 'She is not in a position to answer questions She is still in a delirium and keeps on shouting Fire Fire My mother's sister my dear aunt put out the fire, put out the fire!" and such things. 

4. Karega:

Karega is asleep when the police come and bring him to the station. People gather outside, thinking he is in trouble for last night’s decision to strike, but the police say it is about murder (www.gradesaver.com)

5. News

The headline reads that Mzigo, Chui, and Kimeria, African directors of the Theng’eta Breweries and Enterprises Ltd., were burnt to death last night, and murder is suspected. (www.gradesaver.com)

The Reader’s Digest Book by S. Tilottama

This blog post is a response to a thinking activity task on 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' given by our prof. Dr.Dilip Barad Sir. To know more about this task, CLICK HERE.

To know more about the novel, CLICK HERE.

I tried to cover the main points included in the novel in letter-writing form. CLICK HERE to read.

The Reader’s Digest Book of English Grammar and Comprehension for Very Young Children was written by S.Tilottama. The task is to read the book and answer the questions given at the end of the story.

THE OLD MAN & HIS SON 

When Manzoor Ahmed Ganai became a militant, soldiers went to his home and picked up his father, the handsome, always dapper Aziz Ganai. He was kept in the Haider Baig Interrogation Centre. Manzoor Ahmed Ganai worked as a militant for one and a half years. His father remained imprisoned for one and a half years. 

On the day Manzoor Ahmed Ganai was killed, smiling soldiers opened the door of his father’s cell. ‘Jenaab, you wanted Azadi? Mubarak ho aapko. Congratulations! Today your wish has come true. Your freedom has come.’ 

The people of the village cried more for the shambling wreck who came running through the orchard in rags with wild eyes and a beard and hair that hadn’t been cut in a year and a half than they did for the boy who had been murdered. 

The shambling wreck was just in time to be able to lift the shroud and kiss his son’s face before they buried him. 

Q 1: Why did the villagers cry more for the shambling wreck? 

Maybe because militant groups destroyed the village to answer Ahmed Ganai's death. 

Q 2: Why did the wreck shamble? 

The answer to the soldiers is probably that they have the result to kill Ahmed Ganai. 

ChatGPT:

We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. ChatGPT is a sibling model to InstructGPT, which is trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response. (openai.com)

Site: chat.openai.com.

ChatGPT is AI tool developed by OpenAI company. It gives the generative text answered. Sometimes this tool gives appropriate answers related to the context of the text. These prompts given to AI can be misleading in the context. Because there are possibilities of multiple answering in answers to the literature's questions.

Here I shared Screenshots that I give to AI:

Prompt: Explain the theme of Resillience and Hope in Arundhati Roy's novel 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness'.

Prompt: What is the role of Dung Beetle in the novel 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Prompt: Write about the cover page and it's design. 

Prompt: Write about the cover page of the novel 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' by Arundhati Roy.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

This blog post is a response to a thinking activity task on 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' given by our prof. Dr.Dilip Barad Sir. To know more about this task, CLICK HERE.

I tried to cover the main points included in the novel in letter-writing form. CLICK HERE to read.

The Reader’s Digest Book by S. Tilottama and Screenshots by ChatGPT. CLICK HERE to read 

• About the Novel: 

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is the second novel by Indian-Anglian author Arundhati Roy. The first well-known novel 'The God of Small Things won the Booker prize, and this novel was also nominated.

There are 12 chapters. Each Chapter has significantly connected with each one while we come to know about the plot structure. These chapters' names are: 

1. Where Do Old Birds Go to Die?

2. Khwabgah

3. The Nativity

4. Dr. Azad Bhartiya

5. The Slow-Goose Chase

6. Some Questions for Later

7. The Landlord

8. The Tenant

9. The Untimely Death of Miss Jebeen the First

10. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

11. The Landlord

12. Guhi Kyon

• Arundhati Roy: 

As an Indo-Anglian author, Roy's writing is more realistic of the contemporary time in India. Her flashback method of telling the story, metaphors, irony, and paradox is very well captured by her. Critics also said that in 'The Ministry of Utmosts Happiness' her political overpowering in the novel let the story in dull mode or perhaps the essence of the title may be not very much clear.  

Here is the list of characters as comes in the novel: 

1. Ziauddin - the blind imam 
2. The Man who knew English 
3. Anjum (Aftab)- protagonist, Hermaphrodite
4. Jahanara Begum - Aftab's Mother
5. Aftab/Anjuman/Anjum 
6. Hazrat Sarmad Shaheed - a Jewish American merchant who had traveled to Delhi from Persia in pursuit of the love of his life later he diverse toward spirituality. His tiny dargah is set near Jama Masjid. 
7. Abhay Chand: lover of Sarmad Shaheed
8. Ustad Hameed Khan - a musician who taught Hindustani classical music
9. Mulaqat Ali - Aftab's Father, hakim, was a doctor of herbal medicine, and a lover of Urdu and Persian poetry.
10. Hakim Abdul Majil - founded a popular rand of sherbet called Rooh Afza. 
11. Dr. Ghulam Nabi - a sexologist 
12. Bombay Silk, Bulbul, Razia, Heera, Baby, Nimmo, Mary, and Gudiya all hijras who lived together at Khwabgah 
13. Ustad Kulsoom Bi - a guru of Khwabgah. 
14. Mary - only one Christian in Khwabgah 
15. Gudia&Bulbul - both were Hindus 
16. Bismillah - formerly named Bimla managed the kitchen and guarded Khwabgah 
17. Razia - not a Hijra but she was a man who liked to dress in women, had lost her mind as well as her memory 
18. Nimmo Gorakhpuri: Aftab’s first real friend in the Khwabgah, the youngest of them all and the only one who had completed high school had run away from her home in Gorakhpur where her father worked as a senior division clerk in the Main Post Office.
19. Dr. Mukhtar - suggested another doctor for Anjum's surgery, more reassuring than Dr. Nabi 
20. Dr. Bhagat - another doctor suggested Anjum, checked Zainab while she was ill.
21. Zainab - around the three-year-old girl, Anjum found her on the steps of Jama. Masjid and adopted her. 
22. Saqib: Anjum's brother 
23. Zakir Mian - the Proprietor and Managing Director of shop A-I Flower, a friend of Mulaqat Ali 
24. Bibi Ayesha - Anjum's older sister who had died of tuberculosis
25. Ahlam Baji - the midwife who'd delivered Anjum, a woman on whose tombstone it said (in English) 'Begum Renata Mumtaz Madam'. Begum Renata was a belly dancer from Romania who grew up in Bucharest dreaming of India and its classical dance forms. 
26. Roshan Lal -  Headwaiter of the Rosebud Rest-O-Bar who visits Renata Mumtaz’s grave.
27. Mr.D.D.Gupta - an old client of Anjum 
28. Saddam Hussain - a Chamar, second permanent guest at Jannat Guest House, real name was Dayanand 
29. Payal - Saddam's horse 
30. Sangeeta Madam - boss of Safe n' Sound Guard Service (SSGS) 
31. Anwar Bhai - ran a brothel, one afternoon he came with his daughter's (Rubina) body to a graveyard. (the hospital returned her body with the eyes missing) 
32. Sehrawat - Station House Officer at the Dulian police station who claimed illegally that his father and his friends were 'cow slaughter' it was the cause that his father killed by the mob, Saddam looked for revenge by killing Sehrawat, later he thought to not kill him. 
33. Neeraj - Saddam's friend, from his village who helped him to get a job in the mortuary, the driver
34. Me.Aggarwal - bureaucrat and aspiring politician 
35. Dr. Azad Bhartiya - against the capitalist empire, real name is Inder Y. Kumar. He continues his 10-year fast and runs a newsletter called "News & Views".
36. Tilottama: was a student at the Architecture School, a friend of Biplab Dasgupta, Nagaraj Hariharan, and Musa Yeswi, whom she met during their drama when she worked on sets and lighting design for the play ( Norman, Is That You?) mistress of Nagaraj, later divorced him, she loves Musa. 
37. Nagaraj Hariharan: the closest friend of Dasgupta from school to university, a student of history along with Gupta, a top-notch journalist who works in Kashmir. Tilo marries Naga as suggested by Musa for strategic reasons and later abandons him, a corrupted journalist, his works were favored by the Government of India
38. Musa Yeswi: a reticent Kashmiri man, who joined a militant group, a classmate of Tilo, and boyfriend of Tilo.
39. Chitra-Chittaroopa - Biplab's wife, ( Brahmin Wife) 
40. Rabia and Ania - daughters of Biplab and Chitra 
41. R.C.Sharma - Ram Chandra Sharma - a colleague of Dasgupta at Intelligent Bureau. Naga's 'handler'
42. Imran - a young Kashmiri Police officer who had done some exemplary undercover work for Biplab and his team.
43. Amrik Singh - 'Spitter', Major, A military officer in charge of counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir. Murderer of Jalib Qadri, a well-known lawyer, and human rights activist. Amrik Sing subsequently seeks asylum in the US claiming to be the victim of the tortures he has inflicted on others. In the novel, he is considered a bad apple. 
44. Biplab Dasgupta (Garson Hobart) - a Brahmin, Deputy Station Head, India Bravo (radio code in Kashmir for the Intelligence Bureau), friend of Tilo, Naga, and Musa. The landlord of his apartment. (probably down south),played a role as Garson Hobart in 'Norman, Is That You?'.
45. Jalib Qadri: a well-known lawyer and human rights activist, was killed by Amrik Singh, that was confessed by Singh's wife.
46. Commander Gulrez - Musa 
47. ACP Pinky Sodhi - CRPF Officer, known for her violent interrogation techniques, which seem at odds with her beauty.
48. Balbir Singh Sodhi - brother of Pinky, a senior police officer who had been shot down by militants. 
49. Auntie Meera - the mother of Naga, a teenage widow, comes from the rom Rajput royal family. 
50. Ambassador Shrivashankar Hariharan - father of Naga. 
51. Loveleen Singh née Kaur - wife of Amrik Singh 
52. Manpreet - Loveleen's friend, a journalist in Srinagar 
53. Miss Jebeen (second) - child of Commander Revathy, adopted by Tilo and Anjum (or even Jannat Guest House/Graveyard) 
54. Ashfaq Mir - Deputy Commandant of Shiraz Cinema JIC. 
55. Aijaz - the youngest son of Mulaqat Ali’s older brother, Qasim, who had moved to Pakistan after Partition and worked for the Karachi branch of Rooh Afza. He was captured in an operation in an apple orchard near Pulwama. Interviewed by Naga.
56. Abu Hamza - commander of Aijaz, was a Pakistani.
57. Maryam Ipe - Tilo's mother, belonged to an old, aristocratic Syrian Christian Family, she does not publicly acknowledge her daughter, who suffered from COPD. 
58. Dr.Jacob Verghse - Head of the Department of Critical Care, a medic with the US Army.
59. Jiten. Y. Kumar: Dr, Azad's older brother who lived on the pavement of Jantar Mantar. 
60. Arifa Yeswi - Musa's wife, mother of Miss Jebeen first
61. Miss Jebeen - daughter of Musa and Arifa
62. Hassan Lone - a friend of Musa and his neighbor 
63. Ikhwan Salim Gojri - a friend of major Arikh Singh, later he was killed by him.
64. Sepoy S.Murugesan - the Untouchable, the Dalit soldier S. Murugesan whose body is sent home to Kerala. A statute is built in the village in his memory. But soon the statue is destroyed because a Dalit cannot be celebrated; his sacrifice is not Indian, he just does not belong to the nation; he is intrinsically incapable of heroism.
65. Showkat Yeswi (Godzilla) - Musa's father 
66. Tavleen, Harpreet,Gurpreet, Loveleen and Dimple - four sisters of Amrik Singh
67. Junaid Ahmad Shah- an Area Commander of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen
68. Mr. S.P.P. Rajendran - a retired police officer who held an administrative post in the architectural firm when Tilo worked for. 
69. Khadija – An associate of Musa who travels with Tilo
70. Comrade Revathy Maase – Mother of Miss Jebeen the Second

Sources :

Original Text

knopfdoubleday.com

sydneyreviewofbooks

Here is the table format. Roy used Facts in Fictional stories and their impacts. 

Fact Real Life Socio-Political Events	Fiction Their lives adapted by these events
2002 Gujarat riots	Zakir Mian’s death, Anjum safe
Dalits died or bitten in the name of Cow Slaughters	Dayachands father died through mob as the name of cow slaughter
So many people died in the name of Jai Shree Ram!	Dayachand’s father and his friend were killed by hindu mob
The Bhopal Gas Leak Tragedy	Mentioned in Dr. Azad’s ‘MY NEWS & VIEWS
Anna Hazare Movement 2012	Tubby Gandhian -soldier-turned-village[1]social-worker, who had announced a fast to the death to realize his dream of a corruption-free India, in TV Shows
	statue of Sepoy S. Murugesan, the rifle on its shoulder went missing family tried to file a complaint, but the police refused to register a case

 

A letter to Anjum

Here I tried to cover the main points included in the novel in letter-writing form. You can use the comment section for suggestions and corrections if anything is left out.

To know more about the novel, CLICK HERE.

The Reader’s Digest Book by S. Tilottama and Screenshots by ChatGPT. CLICK HERE to read.

I also read this letter. Here the video is Embedded. 

To: Anjum 

At: Graveyard

Dear Anjum.

I read your story. Your story is the pillar of the novel. You were born and brought up in Khwabgah and you saw the dream of identity and happiness. I come to know how you lived in the graveyard like a tree. I would like to call you Hermaphrodite rather than Hijra. Because you are human more than your already definable identity by society. When you were a newborn baby, your beloved mother's Eight reactions said the whole story of your upcoming life. But your father was always busy to elaborating how his own family, descendants of the Mughals, who were Sunni, came to be Shia, and so on. Hazrat Sarmad Shaheed – Hazrat of Utmost Happiness, Saint of the Unconsoled and Solace of the Indeterminate, Blasphemer among Believers and Believer among Blasphemers who blessed you and the new couple.

Khwabgah - 'the House of Dreams' - calling you through Bombay Silk, not directly, but it was your interest, your destiny to live there. Maybe it was the right place where your dreams could live. You lived with other people like you, the friend Nimmo Gorakhpuri and other Hijras. Your life again blooms with the little blessing of Zainab whom you found near the stairs at Jama Masjid when she was around three years old. You enjoyed your life as being celebrated Hijra of the time. But I was wrong when you were saved from Gujarat Riots at Ahmadabad but your destiny then changed. That mob saved you because of your identity (not because she was Muslim but because she was Hijra) and perhaps they got scared that 'Hijron ka maarna apshagun hota hai. (killing Hijras brings bad luck.) Bad luck! That so-called Bad luck was in between Bharat Mata Ki Jai! and Vande Mataram! and Zakir Mian was lost in between. Gujarat ka Lalla was very busy to climb the paradise (in his way) so he didn't care. And then your life turns in Graveyard - 'Jannat Guest House' which was your real Paradise. 

Jannat Guest House became a hub for Hijras, the tightly administered grid of Hijra Gharanas. When you heartily welcomed your guest as like yours. Nimmo was one of your old friends who visited. Saddam Hussain whose real name was Dayachand - a Chamar, his backstage life was very much connected with your story. You know Anjum, you and others including Miss Jebeen the second are always the hero of your own story. Dayachand wanted to tack revenge for his father's death who died in the name of 'Cow slaughter' by inspector Sehrawat. He had a mare named Payal. But in the end, he wanted to forget all things when he got married to Zainab.

Then one baby came. Your deep desire blooms again and you want to feel that Joy. You strongly argued with Saddam and he denied your desire to be a mother. I thought that baby might be your Joy, but again Mr. Agrawal came and demanded to not take the baby with her. Though it was another political agenda, again because of your identity also. During that conversation, the baby disappeared. And you all looking for the baby. In Duniya, different scams were created by the media, television viewership skyrocketed all kinds of Euphoria was going on. 

Then the story moved to Kashmir. The crown of India! Seventh part 'The Landlord' was narrated by Biplab Dasgupta. From their old college days and the present, they all were quite differently lived. Dasgupta worked at Intelligence Beuro, Nagaraj was a journalist, and Musa joined a militant group. Still, it was the suspense that who the baby was? who were the parents? Tilo- Architect and publisher of Azad Bhartiya’s pamphlet took an abandoned baby girl and named her Miss Jebeen second. Miss Jebeen was the daughter of Musa and Arifa. Arifa and Miss Jebeen were killed during the massacre. This child was of Commander Revathy. She was raped by six police officers and she had no idea who was her father. She wrote a letter to Dr. Azad and wrote about everything that was happened with her. Long scared episode! Then she reviled that she gave her name -  Udhaya (new hope) And the story also ended with hope and the role of Dung Beetle, 

'He was wide awake and on duty, lying on his back with his legs in the air to save the world in case the heavens fell. But even he knew that things would turn out all right in the end. They would because they had to. Because Miss Jebeen, Miss Udaya Jebeen, was come'. 

At the end of the story, I came to know about you more in-depth while Miss Jebeen the second came. Jahanara Begum, you, Tilo, and Revathy are the inspiration to live in The Joy of Motherhood. Your story gives the perspective to live with respect, dignity, courage and with humanity, and love. After suffering from such events, either political or social, you tried to live with a smile and tried to give happiness and you always tried to keep looking for the treasure of happiness that shouldn't be empty in the life of your tenant or family. And that treasure keeps overloaded with your pure blessing upon them. I wish, Udaya will understand what is the role of Guhi Kyom. And I know you will be a supported mother forever. 

Your Life story reader

Divya Sheta. 

Thinking Activity on Revolution Twenty20

This Blog-post is a response to the thinking activity task on 'Revolution Twenty20' novel by Chetan Bhagat given by our professor Dr.Dilip Barad Sir. To know more about Comparative Literary Studies, CLICK HERE.

Author: Chetan Bhagat

Chetan Bhagat is a very famous and popular name among youngsters and young readers in India. He is very famous for his writing in simple but meaningful for life and everyday situations. is an Indian author, columnist, and YouTuber. He was included in Time magazine's list of the World's 100 Most Influential People in 2010. Five of his novels have been adapted into films.((wikipedia.org))

About the Novel:

The entire story is set in Varanasi and Kota. Both places are quite significant through the flaw of narration and its narratology through the character's conversation and the narrator himself. The plot of the story flaws by a triangle love story of Gopal Raghav and Aart. The story mainly focused on three thematic concerns as it is on the book cover of the page, Love, Corruption, and Revolution. Read more about this novel.

Social realism in the Novel:

Social Reality in the novel presents contemporary India which is a very important concern by Chetan Bhagat. The novel mainly deals with Education and Corruption. Even the background canvas of the story is set in contemporary corrupt Indian society. There are two types of people, one who is corrupted and corrupts the education by money is Gopal and another who fights against corruption is Raghav. These two trajectories represent social realism. 

Gopal and Kota City:

Throughout the novel, Gopal shifts to Kota city to crack AIEE/JEE. In the back story of joining Kota that his father forced him to go there and pass the exams to achieve a successful long life career. Here are some quotes from the text.  

I could call myself a true Kota-ite a month into moving there. Like thousands of other students, my life now had a rhythm. Career Path resembled a school, but without the fun bits. Nobody made noise in class, played pranks on one another, or thought of bunking classes. After all, everyone had come here by choice and had paid a big price to be here. 

After a few hours of sleep t would wake up and prepare for the next day's classes. In between, I did household chores, such as washing clothes and shopping for essentials. I went along with the madness, not so much because of the zeal to prepare, but more because I wanted to keep myself busy I didn't want Kotas loneliness to kill me.

"Get some then,' Shishir sir said, 'You need some friends in Kota to cope,  I looked at Shishir, sir. He seemed young and genuine, I know how hard it is. I am a Kota product myself'.

'Relax' he said and extended his hand. I'm Prateek. From Raipur' 

His stubbled face made him look more like an artist than an IIT 

aspirant, 'Repeater?' Prateek said. 

I nodded. 

'Quitter,' he said. 

'What's that?' 

'Tried Kota. Didn't work. Still hanging around here to get some peace,

Anyway, not everyone in Kota had made it. Most students of Career Path had not made it. In fact, Vineet, the boy from Varanasi who went before me to Kota, hadn't made it either. But all 1 showed Baba was my sullen face

'Forty percent of students don't get placed?' I said, shocked. This could be worse than Kota, to finish your degree and get nothing at the end of it.

Kota City or 'Factory' is a word used by Aarti when she saved his name as Gopal Kota Factory. Even every character knows that hoe Kota city is the huge hub of education and coaching centers. Even Gopal's hesitation to be there and studying suggests how education becomes more embarrassing for those students who gained coaching forced by their parents. 

Raghav and Varanasi: 

Varanasi is the place where the holy river Ganga flows. Where people went for burial ceremonies as per the myth that their souls will go to heaven. Meanwhile, Varanasi is the place for Gopal as well as Raghav when it is not such a place that they can afford qualitative coaching to pass JEE/AIEE exams. Raghav who is an IITian and Journalist ran a journal named, 'Revolution 2020; and works with Dainik Media House.  

Varanasi become popular for political reasons also. Many Indian politicians visited Varanasi and did religious practices such as pooja or Aarti in front of people to gain their religious sympathy towards their party. Gopal addressed his town, 

I don't think my city is dirty. It is the people who make it dirty.

I could tell Raghav had worked hard on the story. He had suffered earlier for doing a story without evidence. This time he had left nothing to chance. The fake invoices, contractor-MLA link, and the audacity to dump the dirty water right back into the revered Ganga didn’t spell good news for Shuklaji. Locals would be livid. A politician stealing is bad enough, but to rob from the holy river is the worst sin. It’s not even a real newspaper,’ Shukla-ji’s PA was discussing the matter with someone.  Couple of thousand copies, nobody will pay attention to it.’ The low circulation of Revolution 2020 had become the MLA’s only hope. Party workers had removed as many copies from the newsstands as they could. However, Revolution 2020 came free, like a brochure inside newspapers. It would be impossible to get rid of it completely.

Significance of the title 'Revolution Twenty20'

The title of the novel is very significant. Even the vice versa of written spelling of Revolution is significant. The word 'LOVE' spelled upside-down, signifies the core theme of Love or a love triangle between three major characters. Another connection is about IPL Twenty20 which is written in this way. And how the sub-title of the novel interwoven each other as themes. Corruption in Gopal, Shukla Ji, and other characters we can see while in Ambition we can see in a different way that Gopal's ambition is to achieve more success and money in a short time and while Raghav's ambition is to achieve something valuable for life and country without any corruption. 

Her entry into the Sigra Stadium cricket ground would definitely disrupt the game. Batsmen would miss the bail, fielders would miss catches and jobless morons would whistle in the way they do to give UP a bad name.

Do you think that an opportunity of a good novel is wasted because the story is told from Gopal's perspective? Can it be better if narrated from Raghav or Aarti's perspective? How would it be better if it was narrated from Raghav or Aarti's perspective?

I don't think that the story told from Gopal's perspective is not appropriate as a good novel. The way Gopal is represented as an unethical antagonist impacts more than the simple or traditional way of making the wise and ethical hero the protagonist and that spark readers can easily keep with them. Gopal's character is like the open window. He comes as the open dairy because it is narrated by him. Meanwhile, Gopal as the anti-hero acts like a hero at the end of the novel by sacrificing his love for Aarti. 

Gopal's perspective - Corruption

Raghav's perspective -  Revolution 

Aarti's perspective - Love

Gopal's character is only can able to present three thematic concerns of the novel. From Raghav's perspective, we can only read the narration of patriotism which we can not read from the other two.  Another very important narration is about the conflict between parents-children and parents-children-education. That can be only possible through Gopal's perspective. Though these three characters seem connected with each other and presented the core concern of the novel. 

Revolution 2020 to be made into a Movie - Chetan Bhagat Exclsuive Interview