Testimonials

13

Few words of Goutam Ghosal, Professor of English, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, West Bengal, India on Transgender in Indian Context: Rights and Activism

"Sri Dipak Giri, a serious research scholar, has been laboriously editing scholarly books for the last few years, on various issues, and the latest is on transgender studies, which is a fresh new area in Indian academics. The addition of the subtitle, which refers to the activism in the Indian soil , makes it both informative and investigative, indicating the passion of Sri Giri to be with the current always and to be collaborative in a gesture to present for  us his best possible material in a challenging new field.

Despite debates on the subtle differences among the terms relating to Gender and Sexuality, transgender falls within the broad stream of the “Queer”. Although the discipline owes its birth to Michael Foucault, Gayle Rubin, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Judith Butler, the term queer, often considered as transgender’s  evil twin, was first used in Teresa  de Lauretis’s 1991 work in the feminist cultural studies journal differences entitled “Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities.” She explores her coinage to indicate that there are allied topics involved within this discipline, deconstructing the traditional mistake of calling heterosexuality as an index of sexual habits. It was a challenge to the notion that lesbian and gay studies formed an identical branch of study. Further, it stressed on the various ways that race shaped sexual bias. De Lauretis suggests that queer theory could unite all of these critiques together to open up new researches on sexuality.

There was a time when the transsexuals were regarded as abominable beings in most feminist and gay or lesbian discourses. Today, there is arising a growing need in the transsexual people, as they have acquired the more sophisticated name transgender, to articulate new subjectivisation of the self that truly expresses the reality of transgender crises. In this context, Giri’s book, which is a collection of essays by expert hands, will be quite useful both as a humanitarian statement demanding serious attention in society and also as a reference text in the humanities departments.

In the context of the approaching age of Sri Aurobindo, the “flawed being” cannot be a static reality. Until that reversible reality envisaged by the master in his “The Destiny of the Body” and other texts relating to the transformation of the body, reaches the masses,  the efforts taken by critics like Giri and his team are welcome."

12

Few words of Manojit Mandal, Professor of English, Jadavpur University, West Bengal, India on Homosexuality in Contemporary Indian Literature: Issues and Challenges

"Homosexuality in Indian Literature: Issues and Challenges is a bold attempt to recapture an old and controversial issue from a contemporary perspective. All the 26 essays in the volume throw some new meaning to the subject of, not just homosexuality but human sexual preference itself. Mr. Giri has, without any doubt, successfully generated more curious discourses to the issue in the contemporary Indian context.”

 

11

Few words of Angshuman Kar, Professor of English, Burdwan University, West Bengal, India on Homosexuality in Contemporary Indian Literature: Issues and Challenges

“This anthology is a timely one. I consider this as a part of the country-wide celebration of the verdict of Supreme Court on Section 377 in the Indian Penal Code. I have been teaching a gay play, “On a Muggy Night in Mumbai,” at the M Phil and PG levels for the last twelve years. This play has been received well by my students who come from different places (including remote villages) and backgrounds. While teaching gay play, I have been convinced of the fact that literature is the best tool to sensitize people about gender. This is exactly what this anthology is designed to do. I have read some of the essays of the book and am also convinced of their societal impact. I wish all success to Dipak Giri, the editor of the book.”

 

10

Few words of Debashis Bandyopadhyay, Professor of English, Vidyasagar University, West Bengal, India on Homosexuality in Contemporary Indian Literature: Issues and Challenges

"This book, edited by Dipak Giri, is a timely and apt intervention into the literary studies of sexuality and human relationship. In the context of the epochal verdict coming from the country's apex court, the conventional ideas of sexual propriety were shaken. The conflict between natural propensities and civil laws was problematised as never before. Critical discourses on literary representations of sexual normativity in human relationship underwent a paradigm shift. Literatures written in the past and those being written today in the Indian context are now being re-appraised in the light of the new developments in the history of the liberalisation process. Understanding Indian literature, especially Indian writings in English, will never be the same again. This anthology of twenty six critical essays is a substantial review of the literary affect concerning the East-West binary in the wake of a major socio-cultural upheaval."

09

Few words of Dr. Rita Garg, Author, Lesbian Novel Precursor of Love, India on Homosexuality in Contemporary Indian Literature: Issues and Challenges

"It was long back that as a teacher I had insinuation of the lesbian mentality or attitude or acceptance of such a relationship to make or to mar. 

             What is not nature accepted is not a gift to mankind but on this, the Difference of Opinion is Always WELCOME. For this purpose, I have created this plot of, Precursor of Love. Here is the negation of lesbianism and the names of the characters suggest that. Through the central character, Amilya, a relevant issue is raised that a woman cannot have the same manly strength as a man has. As required, a lesbian woman may not be able to go to a strange destination in the dark night. On the contrary, a man, if willing might. Her refusal to the proposal of the Girl is based not only on this fear but also on the improbability of reproduction. Thus her nomenclature signifies-not meeting. The Girl implies the commonality of her type- a common woman without moral values. She hardly requires a name. The third big name in the novel is of Dr. Surya Narayan. He symbolizes manly strength. In the Mahabharat, Surya and Kunti begot the son Karna, the great sacrificer. Srishti, also represents the class of those woman who look forward to own children and for this she deserts the Girl.

             Last but not the least, reading, writing and editing on a controversial issue call for a hypothetical approach to reach the conclusive note. Undoubtedly, this anthology shall eliminate dust of confusion from each and every iota of uncertainty on the topic. The editor, Dipak Giri, as a column of the edifice on lesbianism shall carve a niche for self. For certain, his effort on lesbian studies shall not be lost in the jungle of books. Lots of best wishes are his right."

08

 

Few words of Mayur Patel, Author, Gay Novel Vivek and I, India on Homosexuality in Contemporary Indian Literature: Issues and Challenges

"When I had written Vivek and I I had little knowledge of how would it be received in a country like India where same sex is still considered a social stigma. Now when the Supreme Court has decriminalized homosexuality Indian society has started to talk about it. It was 2011 when my book was released so my apprehension was valid. However, to my surprise, the book was well received by the readers and the reviewers alike. Since then, many scholars have taken its reference in several ways, and Mr. Dipak Giri is one of them. A Teacher in School at Cooch Behar, West Bengal, Mr. Giri has taken an initiative of preparing a study on the subject of "Homosexuality in Indian Literature". I feel honoured that he has considered my book as one of the study materials. Believing that this noble project will have its own positive effects on the Indian mindset, I wish him best for the publication of this unique book."

07

Few words of Saleem Kidwai,Medieval historian, Gay Rights Activist and Translator, India on Homosexuality in Contemporary Indian Literature: Issues and Challenges

"Any attempt to study the challenges faced by contemporary writers when dealing with the complex issue of homosexuality in the Indian context by contemporary writers now that the Supreme Court of India has decriminalised of what is a normal aspect of human sexuality, is most welcome. Hopefully this volume will break the academic silence that still lingers on this sensitive subject."

06

Few words of Goutam Buddha Sural, Professor, Department of English & Culture Studies, Bankura University, West Bengal, India on Homosexuality in Contemporary Indian Literature: Issues and Challenges

"Until the turn of the century the Indian heteropatriarchal society at large made tidy attempts to set aside issues like homosexuality in dusty cupboards for ages. The society adopted strategies of silencing the sexual identities which did not fit into the male/female heteronormative binary. Barring some exceptions, the Indian academia also did not have the courage to dwell upon the sexual identities beyond the heterosexual male/female double. There was little effort in the academic circle to foreground these issues, on the contrary,  there were conscious attempts to invisibilize these subjects. Presentation of homosexuality in literary texts was considered rather offensive.

       Since the last decade of twentieth century the attitude of the society towards these subjects started changing. The discourse of hegemonic power of heteronormativity was gradually facing challenges as poets like Hoshang Merchant, Kamala Das, Suniti Namjoshi and dramatists like Mahesh Dattani were voicing candidly their protests against the heterosexist attitude through their poems and plays. The credit of these writers lies in their efforts to include in their works these apparently tabooed subjects against the subtle politics of exclusion of these debated issues, thereby keeping a harmonious heteronormative façade. The marginalization of alternate sexualities in Indian societies had become the general norm and any deviation from this was considered outrageous by the ‘genteel’ society.

      If we examine the corpus of Indian English Literature carefully, we can locate many examples of sexually ‘deviant’ characters.  India of the mythic past was tolerant of different sexual identities. We can refer to the character of Shikhandi who was born as a girl and was named Shikhandini. One can also cite the example of Ardhanarisvara, who is an example of the androgynous self where the male and the female coexist in perfect unison. But for the heterocentric society such a person is often considered as the ‘other’, as a ‘deviant’ character. By labeling them as ‘other’ the society ignores the reality that all human beings are basically androgynous and the qualities of a man and a woman are not mutually exclusive. And what is more disturbing is that this attitude is often legitimized by law, religion, and at times by questionable medical practice. In the twenty first century a welcome change is noticed when we find the discourses of gendered subalterns and their negotiation with heteronormative ideology are reflected in Indian English Literature. Today there are texts which challenge the cultural constructs of sexuality and gender roles. Foucault’s theorization on alternate sexualities and Queer theory significantly paved the way for re-reading of texts dealing with deviant characters.  

      R. Raj Rao in the ‘Introduction’ to Whistling in the Dark: Twenty-one Queer Interviews (Ed. R. Raj Rao and Dibyajoti Sharma. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2009, ix-xxxiii) observes:

In a scenario where homosexuality is criminalized by law, where heterosexism thrives, and where society insists on marriage and procreation, gay love is but likely to rely on chance and casual encounters that do not blossom into permanent relationship on account of the odds. The heterosexual mainstream accuses homosexuals of not being committed to the idea of love…. (xxix)

        In this connection it would not be out of place to mention the legal battle centering on same sex relationship in the recent past. The verdict of Delhi High Court in 2009 decriminalized part of article 377 of IPC and gave its approval for consensual sex between partners of the same sex. This verdict, however, was set aside by the Supreme Court in 2013. Later, following submission of petitions by gay rights activists, a five-member constitution bench of Supreme Court in 2018 unanimously decriminalized same sex relation and observed that to regard gay sex as a criminal offence would go against the fundamental rights of an individual. Today when one reads texts which openly deal with issues related to LGBTQ the verdict of Supreme Court certainly adds a different dimension in appreciating those texts.

      The book, entitled Homosexuality in Contemporary Indian Literature: Issues and Challenges, edited by Dipak Giri, includes articles on a number of issues covering some important writers of Indian English Literature. Many of these writers are incorporated in the syllabi of different universities and colleges. This edition, therefore, is going to be helpful to students and scholars by offering them new perspectives to read the texts. While the book incorporates articles on authors who have attained a canonical status, it has a number of articles on authors, mainly fiction writers, who have made their presence felt in Indian English Literature of the present century. R. Raj Rao, Mala Kumar, Mayur Patel, Abha Daweswar, Rita Garg are names familiar to Indian readers today and the Indian academia is showing interest in the works of these writers. The critical essays on these writers are thus going to help the young readers negotiate their works from the perspective of LGBTQ studies. One can justifiably hope that an edition like this will be well received by both the readers of academic institutions as well as scholars and researchers interested in the particular field."

05

 

Few words of Soma Banerjee, Professor, Department of English, Rabindra Bharati University, West Bengal, India on Indian Women Novelists in English: Art and Vision

"Women’s intense quest for identity and freedom figures large in the variegated essays in this anthology. From the chronologically first acclaimed to the later acclaimed literary women artists of the story telling art, independence from fetters imposed by society and self make an impact.

It is rather significant that women writers of the subcontinent, some in diaspora, feature totally in this anthology. The angst of separation, dual themes of alienation and self-discovery, cultural and geographical standpoints and building up of identity, questions of patriarchy’s domination and feminist ideology – all the trauma and overcoming of the trauma are contained in the essays of renowned women writers Indian or of Indian descent.

Shri Dipak Giri’s initiative in finding out this anthology of select critical essays by scholars (thankfully unfettered by rank or age as scholars really should be!) is a welcome addition to a growing rank of critical writings on known and still quite unknown arenas of literature and literati.

The eternal interlinking of society, language and literature, in defining human experience, has found voices, variegated, in each and every essay here. In this anthology, that deals primarily with the nuances of life and their treatment by women, the novelists’ and the woman’s ‘gaze’ coincide in a powerful manner.

Shri Giri has rendered a timely and remarkable service as an academician in compiling these essays on women of letters and their influence on the present ambience in Indo-Anglican literature today."

04

Few words of Nandini Bhattacharya, Professor and Head, Department of English and Culture Studies, University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India on New Woman in Indian Literature: From Covert to Overt

"New Woman in Indian Literature: From Covert to Overt, a collection of essays from authors from across the Indian nation state and edited by Mr. Dipak Giri, is a brave attempt at mapping representation of the Indian woman condition and the transitional nature of Indian society in Indian English literature. Such representations in the narratives of writers as diverse as Manju Kapur. Mahasweta Devi, Kavery Nambisan, Shobha De, Chitra Divakurni, IsmatChugtai, Nayantara Sehgal, Anita Nair, Gita Hariharan, Shashi Deshpande, Bharati Mukherjee. is fascinating to say the least. The only male writer who has found a place in this volume that, inscribes representation of new women of India is Mahesh Dattani. It is significant that Dattani espouses a queer position and is therefore more sensitive to the fluidity of gender boundaries A few poets such as Kamala Das and KishwarNaheed also make the cut.

The edited volume introduces some fairly dense and complex concepts, such as the ‘new woman’, ‘Indian English literature’ and the ‘representational journey of such a new woman from a camouflaged to a more visible position in such literature’, as the frame argument. Such complex and interwoven concepts require more rigorous examination. While the essays are individually well written and well argued, and the national perspective achieved both in terms of author choice and choice of the essay writers, the book would have done better if it had spared more time and space to discuss these dense frame concepts. 

The book New Woman in Indian Literature will serve the purpose of introducing gender issues to scholars and students alike and give them an opportunity to re-examine the figure of the new woman in India, as represented in contemporary Indian literature. I congratulate Mr. Dipak Giri for his efforts."

03

Few words of Niladri R. Chatterjee, Professor, Department of English, Kalyani University, West Bengal, India on Postcolonial English Literature: Theory and Practice 

"At a recent seminar held at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gorakhpur University I took the opportunity of being the Keynote Speaker to express my suspicion that terms or phrases such as "rewriting" or "counter discourse" or "writing back" carry a certain violence, a certain confrontational energy. This energy may be emotionally mobilising but may not be politically productive in the long run, because its oppositionality seems to invoke and reiterate a neat and clear binary; and neat and clear binaries seldom work when it comes to talking about messy things like culture and identity, because there is no such thing as a "pure" culture and no such thing as a "pure" identity. We are all culturally impure, but some of us revel in the notion of being a "pure Hindu" or a "pure Indian" when such purity is just a linguistic lie. Very often language is used to prop up notions of cultural purity. English still continues to be regarded in some quarters as a "foreign" (and therefore untouchable) language. This is why it gives me great pleasure to provide the foreword to this book because it continues the healthy project of engaging with the postcolonial condition using what some still regard as "the coloniser's language."

I congratulate Mr. Dipak Giri for putting together a volume that does not believe in geographical, racial, national, gendered boundaries as unbridgeable. The range of authors discussed here - from Achebe to Roy - is a testimony to the ever-expanding contours of postcolonial writing. The focus on fiction - Dattani being the only playwright dealt with here - seems apposite because sometimes a condition requires the length and breadth of a novel for its adequate treatment. The care with which each contributor has tried to negotiate the tricky terrain of postcoloniality is worthy of note. Volumes such as these are always welcome, because the postcolonial condition is so overdetermined by innumerable and powerful historical, socio-cultural, and economic forces that careful, tentative but persistent identification of these forces and their impact is always to be undertaken.

I hope that this volume will excite many minds, restart many conversations, invigorate many thoughts, but not in the spirit of loud, confrontational anger. Let us be humbled by the acknowledgement that pure oppositionality is intellectually unhelpful and that dealing with our own postcolonial hybridities with care and understanding may be the way forward."

02

Few words of Goutam Ghosal, Professor of English, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, West Bengal, India on Indian English Novel: Styles and Motives

"Mr. Dipak Giri’s book covers a wide perspective of Indian English Fiction written by competent hands, who contributed on the major novelists of the contemporary scene on diverse issues, mostly political and sociological, which are now highlights of the syllabi of all Indian universities and colleges. Fiction deals with contemporary realities from Rajmohan’s Wife to the latest creations. In between, in the early part of the twentieth century, before Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan appeared on the scene, there had been masterful attempts at psychological and mysterious short fictions, like “The Phantom Hour” and “The Door at Abelard” by Sri Aurobindo, which are unfortunately little known.

This anthology also contains socio-psychological studies on love and doom, despair and glory, the woman’s question, the marginalized majority, the Dalits and the like. It is a comprehensive volume, covering large spaces and reflecting on the leading novelists of our day, from Salman Rushdie down to Chetan Bhagat, and even on the classics of the earlier days. The variety in this co-operative anthology is quite remarkable.

I hope it will benefit both the teachers and the students."

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Few words of Amit Bhattacharya, Professor and Head, Department of English, University of Gour Banga, West Bengal, India on Indian English Drama: Themes and Techniques

"It is indeed a commendable effort on the part of Shri Dipak Giri to have edited an anthology of research articles entitled Indian English Drama: Themes and Techniques. Indian English Drama, as we all know, is a literary offshoot of the cultural encounter between the East and the West occasioned by the colonial rule in India. Indian English is a controversial marker that has fascinated and flummoxed the experts as regards its origin and features. Similarly, Indian English Drama as a hybrid literary genre is sure to tease us out of thought on account of the two dramatic traditions (English and Indian) that it is an heir to. English Drama with its mixed origin from classical and indigenous traditions, and Indian Drama with its folk and oral heritage came together to bring forth a varied offspring. If bilingualism and multiculturalism have ensured the blurring of boundaries between ‘Indian English Drama’ and ‘Indian Drama in English Translation’, then local heritage and global trends have contributed to the breathtaking variety and diversity in its themes and techniques.

Students, researchers and enthusiasts of Indian English Drama, therefore, should laud the labour of love that Shri Giri has undertaken. The contributors deserve to be praised for sharing with us their research findings to the best of their ability. Similarly, the publishers of the anthology must be given credit for bringing out a useful book on an area that deserves active academic investigation.

The different chapters of this edited anthology seek to tackle diverse facets of Indian English Drama. The themes and techniques employed by playwrights from Rabindranath Tagore to Mahesh Elkunchwar have been taken up for discussion. Similarly, authors and works have been revisited from diverse critical perspectives.

The Editor undoubtedly commands our praise for this academic venture for which he also gains our good wishes. As for possible improvements, more studies on multiple authors and on the plays written by the Indian Diaspora may be included in subsequent editions of the anthology."