Analyse the role of Sukru Jani in Paraja.

Analyse the role of Sukru Jani in Paraja. 

 [Dec-2013, Q.No.-8]

Ans. In the novel Paraja, Sukru lani and his family are . taken as Sukru representative of the 'Paraja tribe. The novel begins by situating Sukru Jani and his family in a village inhabited by the'Paraja' who live in thatche huts on Paraja' street, while in the next street live the Domes. Their needs are simple and their desires are limited to a bowl of mandia gruel every morning and again in the evening, a piece of land to cultivate, and a pieces of cloth to cover their body. Sukru Jani's wife Sombari is dead, killed by a man-eating tiger and since then he has lived with his sons Mandi and Tikra, and his daughters Jili and Bili. Sukru Jani is the natural protagonist of the novel as the story of the novel revolves around his destiny, elations and mourning’s. He played a vital role as a patriarch of the 'Paraja' tribe by killing the cruel landowner Ram Bisoi. Sukru Jani universalizes not only his the tribe 'Paraja only but he also represents many other tribes like 'Paraja' who prefer to stay in their limited world but are being infringed upon by materialistic civilization to achieve their goals with the help of power. He is now old but not senile or debilitated. He is hard working, honest, conscientious and loves his children. A typical 'Paraja' tribesman with an intense love for the  land and a sense of humor, he is unable to deal with the machinations of the the outsiders especially when they come armed with the powers of the states such as guards.The story of Sukru Janis life is in a way story of the elite of the Parajas, the whole tribe. The writer emphatically points at the  unscrupulous means adopted by non-tribals to usurp tribal land through unfair methods.

Sukru Jani has in his dreams a future, when he will play with his grandchildren and great grandchildren, and he has a deep faith in the kind and benevolent' spirits which have endowed his life with a sense of peace and repose. He plans to build separate houses for his sons when they  get married as according to Paraja custom, married sons cannot live with  their parents. All his thoughts and dreams were exploited by a landowner , named Ram Bisoi, who not only exploited him financially, but also ruined his family. Thus, the novel depicts the exploitation of tribal groups through the protagonist Sukru Jani.

Notes on Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column by Student Help.

Notes on Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column by Student Help.

Politics and Communal Riots:

 The partition of India, an important event affected many aspects of life. Partition has drawn the attention of politicians, historians and creative writers. Sunlight on a Broken Column narrates the story of the individual crisis of Laila and the political crisis facing the people. The novel is political in as much as the characters not only react but also participate in the political goings on in the country and take definite stands for and against them. The political milieu does not overtake the human story. But the decay of the feudal system, Hamid’s entrance into politics division of the family due to partition and the characters inheriting political climate and discussions on the political ideas enrich the political flavour of the novel. Laila’s friends in the college hold divergent views about the contemporary politics. Nita Chatterji, who is a nationalist, upholds the congress; Nadira, an ardent follower of Islamic ideals, upholds the Muslim League and Joan, an Anglo-Indian, upholds the British rule. The novelist very interestingly holds up mirror to three main streams the congress, the Muslim League and the British Raj through these characters. In addition to that, as Novy Kapadiya writes, Asad’s head injury, Nita’s dismissal from college and death caused by lathi blows on her head, students’ protest at the viceroy’s arrival and plain-cloth policeman at the University campus were all sings of political ferment. (Kapadiya, 173) The novel implicitly depicts the struggle for power politics. After the abolition of the feudal system, Hamid wants to find a new political identity by contesting election. Saleem says to Hamid: In the final analysis what you are facing is the struggle for power by the bourgeoisie. It is not really a peasan’ts movement, but when it comes to division of spoils even class interests are forgotten. (SOBC, 231) On the other hand, the focus of the novel is on crisis within the Muslim community. Historically speaking, partition was an enigma. They were torn between two worlds the newly created Pakistan, a separate homeland for the Muslims, and India, the country where they were born and lived for many years. This kind of climate this yielded two types of Muslim stands; one pro-Pakistan, demanding the division of the country and two pro-India, supporting the united India. At the level of high political scenario also one can trace the representation of the former  in personalities like Jinnah and Liakat Ali and the latter in Maulana Azad. 

Notes on Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column by Student Help.

Notes on Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column by Student Help.

British Rulers and Communal Riots:

It is essential to study the role of the British rulers in the novel. In the novel the narrator focuses more on the reason of communal drifts and partition than just depicting the events. The ideological and mutual differences between the British and the Indian are shown through the characters of Mrs. Martin and Sylvia Tucker Mrs. Martin though friendly with the native people never considers India as her home. Sylvia talks of British arrogance toward the Indians. John criticizes the natives. The ideological difference about nationalism and religion causes argument among Laila’s own friends. Differences on religion and nationalism bring conflict even among the people within the same community and the same family. Asad and Zahid although both are Muslims have different outlook about religion. Asad’s secular outlook keeps him back in India while Zahid maintains a dogmatic fundamentalist view. He says, “I hate those who are enemies of Islam no matter whom they may be and I am prepared to give my life for it” (SOBC, 69). Asad condemns this communal hatred and says, “I am sure of nothing except that hatred breeds hated and violence and sorrow even if we ourselves suffer?” (SOBC, 69). Even Laila is pained to see the growing discord and says, “And now I wonder how far apart we will drive each other ourselves” (SOBC, 256). That is the seed of discord sown by the British was nurtured by the communal hatred and now grown into a well rooted tree the fruits of which were full of bitterness. In Sunlight on a Broken Column, Attia Hosain shows that the British imperialists get success in weakening the nationalist movement by their well-known policy of dividing the two communities. She exposes the role, the British played in developing the communal struggle. Asad represents the Muslims who know very well about the British rulers policy of hating each other and loving them. The novelist tries to trace the causes of the growth of communal hatred and partly blames the British and partly the leaders of both communities. Firstly she discerns the “Divide and Rule” policy of the British Similar views are put by the historian Bipan Chandra, “British policy was solely responsible for the rise and growth of communalism; or that the entire communal antagonism or politics can be attributed to British policy. It is obvious that the British policy of divide and rule could succeed only” (Chandra, 238). It is therefore true and needless to suspect that the British rule played important role in the promotion and growth of communal virus between Hindus and Muslims.

Summary of Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column by Student Help.

Summary of Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column by Student Help.

 The novel is a first person narration by Laila of her from the age of fifteen to mid-thirties. Covering a socio-politically turbulent period in Indian history during 1932 and 1952, the novel is a sensitive and poignant tale of the growing up of the orphan Laila. The novel divided into four parts covering a period of twenty years in the life of the country and of Laila. The first part begins with the illness of the orphan Laila’s paternal grandfather Baba Jan and the resultant changes in the lifestyle of the Zenana, the women’s quarters. Laila’s spinster aunt, Abida, who has brought up Laila after the death of her parents, is forced to move into her father’s apartment in order to nurse her properly. Soon after Baba Jan dies and his only other surviving son uncle Hamid comes back to take over his responsibilities as head of the household. Laila’s aunt Abida is married off, as is her cousin Zahra, her distant cousins which comprise of the poor relations in the aristocratic household Asad and Zahid are packed off to college and Laila moves into the new house. The second part begins with Laila’s new world college, new girl friends of her own age but from very different background and the politics of this new social world. The third part charts the changes in Laila’s life with the arrival of her uncle Hamid’s sons from England, Kemal an ICS officer and Saleem a lawyer. Through them she has the opportunity to meet other men, nearer her age, go to parities and she soon falls in love with a lecturer, Ameer, who does not come from a comparable aristocratic background. Laila joins postgraduate studies her affair is discovered. The last section of the novel, the fourth part, is fifteen years later, when Laila revisits her ancestral home in 1952, and the intervening years are narrated in snatches, in flashback. Covering a period from pre-war years to partition, the novel depicts a vivid picture of a social and political change during that period and its impact on simple innocent life of the villagers. The novelist realizes that before the bestial horrors were enacted on the eve of the communal riots. There was communal harmony in the subcontinent. In spite of differences in both thereligions they respected each other’s religion, loved and valued each other’s culture and life and lived in peace and harmony.

A Critical Study of Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column

A Critical Study of Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column  

Sunlight on a Broken Column:

 Sunlight on a Broken Column is Attia Hosain’s autobiographical account by a fictional character called Laila. Laila is a fifteen-year old orphaned daughter of a rich Muslim family of Taluqdars. Sunlight on a Broken Column is a significant novel by a Muslim lady on the theme of partition. It also emphasizes the presence of the secular section of Muslims in India. The novel covers a period of both Hindu and Muslims took active part in the struggle for independence as fellowmen. The scene is laid in Lucknow, it depicts ideal two cultural for ages. The novelist has woven a story out of her own life and experience. The novel is autobiographical that allows personal experience to provide the narrative both momentum and also make it impersonal. There is a parallel between the events of the novel, the life of Hosain against the backdrop of the freedom struggle and events at Ashiana in the novel. Hosain has to face division in her family due to partition.

Of Great Place by Francis Bacon.

Of Great Place Analysis

Of Great Place by Francis Bacon is an argumentative essay that argues about the competition among the brilliant and higher respectable politician during his era. This essay by Francis bacon is comparatively long and focused on a subject-matter.

Brevity, directness, wit, and to the point arguments are one of the qualities that Bacon’s essay contain. The systematic way of writing makes bacon’s essay to move from one point to another logically. Moreover, the subject matters he discusses in his writing style are all based on the real life and the reader found an epigrammatic wisdom in it. With the use of Latin proverbs, Bacon adds insignia to his writings.

The central idea of the essay “Of Great Place” shows the reader position of men in great position. Francis Bacon argues about the life, manners, and obligations of the men at higher positions. Bacon starts the essay by demerits of the higher position. He illustrates that the men, for the sake of attaining power over other men, lose power over himself. A man involves himself in various immoral activities to attain higher place. In addition to this, after attaining the higher position, he devotes himself to his duties so much that he compromises on his health. The other demerit of higher position is that man becomes blind with money to see his faults and he seeks happiness by the opinion of others.

Bacon suggested to the people at a great place they must not only consider good examples around them and should learn good things from them, however, the must also consider the examples of those who carry ill with them and learn to avoid such things. Moreover, a man should always learn from the past experiences to have a fortunate future.

The end of the essay as usual consists of advice and suggestions by Bacon to combat with various vices of a higher position. He, furthermore, adds that the great position of man shows the true man. Some people prove to be benevolent while other proves to worst.

The wise man such Bacon not only shows the weaknesses and strengths of a great man to the readers but also advice the readers how to behave when hired in such positions. His essay shows that he was highly interested in the human nature and to write about them so that one can improve them.

A Tale Of Two Cities

A Tale Of Two Cities

The early rumblings of the French Revolution are echoing across the English Channel when, in Paris, an old man waits in an attic for his first meeting with a daughter whom he has not seen since she was a baby. With the aid of Mr. Jarvis Lorry, an agent for the Franco-British banking house of Tellson & Co., the lovely Lucie Manette is brought to Paris to be reunited with her father, who was imprisoned for eighteen years in the Bastille. Above the wineshop of Madame and Monsieur Defarge, Dr. Manette is kept secretly until his rescuers can take him safely back to England. Day after day, Madame Defarge sits outside her wineshop, knitting into a long scarf strange symbols that will later spell out a death list of hated aristocrats and enemies of the Revolution.

Five years later, Lucie sits beside her father in the courtroom of the Old Bailey, where Charles Darnay, a teacher of languages, is on trial for treasonable activities that involve his passing between France and England on secret business. A man named John Barsad brings charges against him. Lucie and her father testify that they met Darnay on the boat when they traveled from France five years earlier. The prisoner was saved when Mr. Stryver, the prisoner’s counsel, pointed across the courtroom to another man, Sydney Carton, who so resembled the prisoner that legal identification of Darnay was shaken and Mr. Stryver was able to secure an acquittal for the prisoner. Carton’s relationship to Stryver is that of the jackal to the lion; the alcoholic, aimless Carton writes the cases that Stryver pleads in court.

Lucie and her father live in a small tenement under the care of their maid, Miss Pross, and their kindly friend, Mr. Lorry. Jerry Cruncher, the porter at Tellson & Co. and a secret resurrectionist, is often helpful. Darnay and Carton become frequent callers in the Manette household, after the trial that brought them together.

In France, the fury of the people grows. Monseigneur the Marquis St. Evrémonde is driving in his carriage through the countryside when he carelessly kills a child of a peasant named Gaspard. The nobleman returns to his castle to meet his nephew, Charles Darnay, who is visiting from England. Darnay’s views differ from those of his uncle. Darnay knows that his family committed grave injustices, and he begs his uncle to make amends. Monseigneur the Marquis haughtily refuses. That night, the marquis is murdered in his bed.

Darnay returns to England to seek Dr. Manette’s permission to court Lucie. In order to construct a bond of complete honesty, Darnay attempts to tell the doctor his true French name, but Manette fearfully asks him to wait until the morning of his marriage before revealing it. Carton also approaches Lucie with a proposal of marriage. When Lucie refuses, Carton asks her always to remember that there is a man who will give his own life to keep a life she loves beside her.

In France, Madame Defarge knits the story of the hated St. Evrémondes into her scarf. Gaspard was hanged for the assassination of the marquis; Monseigneur’s house must be destroyed. Barsad, the spy, brings news that Lucie will marry Darnay, the nephew of the marquis. This news disturbs Defarge, for Dr. Manette, a former prisoner of the Bastille, holds a special honor in the eyes of the revolutionists.

Lucie and Darnay are married. Carton becomes a loyal friend of the family. Time passes, and tiny Lucie arrives. When the child is six years old, in the year 1789, the French people storm the Bastille. At the Bastille, Defarge goes to the cell where Dr. Manette was a prisoner and extracts some papers hidden behind a stone in the wall.

One day, while Darnay is talking to Mr. Lorry at Tellson & Co., a letter addressed to the Marquis St. Evrémonde is placed on Mr. Lorry’s desk. Darnay offers to deliver it to the proper person. When he is alone, he reads the letter. It is from an old family servant who is imprisoned by the revolutionists. He begs the Marquis St. Evrémonde to save his life. Darnay realizes that he must go to Paris. Only Dr. Manette knows of Darnay’s family name, and the doctor is sworn to secrecy.

Darnay and Mr. Lorry go to Paris, the latter to look after the French branch of Tellson & Co. Shortly after his arrival, Darnay is seized as an undesirable immigrant after Defarge orders his arrest. Mr. Lorry is considerably upset when Lucie and Dr. Manette suddenly arrive in Paris. Some of the doctor’s friends inform him of Darnay’s arrest. The old man feels that his own imprisonment in the Bastille will win the sympathy of the revolutionists and enable him to save his son-in-law.

After fifteen months of waiting, Darnay is brought to trial. Because he is able to prove himself innocent of harming the French people, he is freed but forbidden to leave France. A short time later, he is again arrested, denounced by Defarge and one other person whose name the officer refuses to disclose.

While shopping one day in the Paris market, Miss Pross and Jerry Cruncher, who are in Paris with Lucie and Mr. Lorry, meet a man who causes Miss Pross to scream in amazement and Jerry to stare in silent astonishment. The man is Solomon, Miss Pross’s lost brother. Jerry remembers him as Barsad, the man who was a spy-witness at the Old Bailey. Carton arrives on the scene at that moment, and he is able to force Barsad to come with him to the office of Tellson & Co. for a private conference. Barsad fears detection of his duplicity, for he is now an employee of the Republican French Government. Carton and Jerry threaten to expose him as a former spy for the English government, the enemy of France. Carton makes a deal with Barsad.

When Darnay is once more brought before the tribunal, Defarge testifies against him and names Dr. Manette as the other accuser. Defarge produces the papers that he found in Dr. Manette’s cell in the Bastille. Therein the doctor wrote the story of his arrest and imprisonment because he learned of a secret crime committed by a St. Evrémonde against a woman of humble birth and her young brother. His account is enough to convict Darnay. Sentenced for the crimes of his ancestors, Darnay, the young St. Evrémonde, is condemned by the tribunal to the guillotine.

Carton now begins to visit the Defarge wineshop, where he learns that Madame Defarge is the sister of the woman ruined by St. Evrémonde years before. With the help of the false Barsad, he gains admittance to the prison where Darnay was taken. There he drugs the prisoner and, still aided by the cowed Barsad, has him carried from the cell, himself remaining behind. The resemblance between the two will allow him to pass as Darnay and prevent discovery of the aristocrat’s escape.

Madame Defarge goes to the lodgings of Lucie and Dr. Manette to denounce them. Only Miss Pross is there; the others, including Darnay, are already on their way to safety. To keep Madame Defarge from learning of their escape, Miss Pross struggles with the furious woman when she demands admittance to Lucie’s apartment. Madame Defarge is killed when her pistol goes off. Miss Pross is deaf for the rest of her life. Lucie and Darnay return safely to England. Carton dies at the guillotine, giving his own life for the happiness of those he loved.