Amitav Ghosh : 'The Shadow Lines' ---- Term paper Tradegy -----

HUL237 - Contemporary Fiction:

17th of April was decided to be 'deadline' for the submission of term paper of any of these books :
1. Arthur C Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama, 1972
2. Yaan Martel, Life of Pi,2001
3. Coetzee, Disgrace,1999
4. Isaac Asimov, Forward the Foundation, 1994
5. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy, 2004
6. Chuck Palaniuk, Fight Club, 1996 : also a great movie on this novel featured by the superb acting of 'Brad Pitt'. No comments on the story - kind of arbit.
7. Khaled Hosseni, The Kiterunner,2003. Most of my friends preferred this because of nice picturisation of the novel in the movie.
8. Dorris Lessing, The Golden Notebook, 1962.
9. Shyam Selvadurai, The Funny boy, 1994.
10. Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines,1998.
11. R.K.Narayan, The Guide, 1958.
12. Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things,1997.
13. Amitav Ghosh, The Glass Palace, 2000.
14. Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, 2005.

Course Books: KAzuo Ishiguro's 'A Pale View of Hils' and Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies"

I would like to confess that most of the content of my term paper on Amitav Ghosh's "The Shadow Lines" is from the intenet inspite of the prior warning of copying from the internet or any other source. Yaar par mein kya karta, kuchch bhi soojhta hi nahi us tarah. An incident which can be normally explained in 10 lines , I do it 2 lines whereas Madame wants it to explain in your own terms in about 100 lines which just seems almost impossible without serious trying and knowledge.
But when I think of myself improving my English skills, I lost a great opportunity and I am wholly responsible for it.
" From now on, I will write book review of any book which I write . I think its more useful than using that time to read another novel.

Let me explian the current state of my term paper of "The Shadow Lines" right now: The narrator has not revealed his identity. He is fond of his second uncle, Tridib who tells him stories and believes passionately that ' a person can't feel the place, if he does not have a picture of his own of that very place" : something like that. The narrator Grandmother is a great character- mixture of many traits - vigilant, passion for freedom , hates Western culture,















Here is my term paper which I submitted:

BOOK REVIEW
Novel : The Shadow Lines
AUTHOR : Amitav Ghosh
Awards : winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award (1989).
Bibliography : The Shadow Lines(novel), Wikipedia(Internet).
Main Characters : Mayadebi, Tridib, Ila, May, Narrator, Nick, grandmother.

POLITICAL SCENERIO :
The novel is set against the backdrop of historical events:
1.Swadeshi movement
2.Second World War
3.Partition of Country
4.Communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka and Calcutta


CHARACTERS ANALYSIS :
The characters in this novel – except that of Tridib – are realistically portrayed and are not larger than life. Each one is portrayed with all the weaknesses that make them endearing. Each one is believable . But Tridib does not seem to belong to this world. He comes across as a ‘seer’, someone endowed with extra-sensory and extra-visionary abilities.

1. Narrator : The protagonist is a middle class boy who grows up in a middle class family. He is sexually attaracted to Ila but he never tells her. He is very close to his grandmother and knows about her more than anyone. As a young boy he seldom gets to travel farther than his school. And yet his world spans far beyond, across continents. He paints up this world, rather vividly, borrowing colours from others. He uses Tridib’s eyes to view a certain family in London, their house, the streets, the panic of war. He uses his grandmother’s eyes to see her life in Dhaka as a young girl, her uncle and cousins, the other side of the big house where everything was upside down. He uses his cousin’s eyes to view different parts of the world where she travelled, her aspirations for belonging, her heartaches caused by a reality as different from her dreams as she and her background was from those with whom she lived in those foreign lands.

2. Tridib : He was the son of Mayadebi, and so by relation he was the second uncle of Narrator. He is well-travelled but he prefers to live his life in Calcutta, where he works at a Ph.D. in archaeology. For Tha'mma, he is very irresponsible person who wastes his life wandering across the streets but narrator loves to listen to Trideb. He passionately believes that 'a place does not merely exist, that it has to be invented in one's imagination' . He was killed by Muslim mobs in communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka.

3. Grandmother of Narrator (Tha'mma) : She is the headmistress of girls school in Calcutta. She is very strict, disciplined, hardworking, mentally strong and patient lady. Time is very precious for her. According to her, time is a toothbrush; it goes mouldy if it isn’t used. She had been awarded a Bachelor’s degree in history by Dhaka University. She has a dreadful past. She was married to an engineer with the railways, in Burma. In 1935, her husband passed away.

4. Ila : She is the cousin of narrator. She lives in Stockwell, London. She is very good looking, and broad minded. She wants to be free. According to her, the constraints on women in India made their life horrible. That’s why she lived in London, so that she could do whatever she wants. She marries Nick, an Englishman, buys a home, finds a job, tries to settle down but without success.

5. May : She is the daughter of Prices family, who are relatives of Tridib’s family. Tridib was in love with her. She is committed to a purposeful and principled social life. She is kind-hearted and works for society by collecting funds for famine relief in Africa, and other social services.

6. Nick : He is a good looking blonde having long hairs and wants to become a Chartered Accountant. As May says to narrator: 'He is different, he is not like us'. He lacks the sensibility and moral values of a normal human being. He marries Ila and is cheating on her as he admits sleeping with other women.

Apart from all these characters, there is a fantasized character "Magda", Ila's fantasy child whom she acknoledges when she was playing 'houses' with the narrator. Magda is blue-eyed and blonde and has very bright and beautiful hairs. This shows that Ila fantasized to marry an Englishman from her childhood.

TITLE OF THE BOOK - "The Shadow lines" :
The shadow lines that the title proclaims to be the theme of the novel are very shadowy themselves. We never get to see them as they are and there is never a mention of these lines anywhere in the novel. The interpretation of the meaning of the shadow lines is left to the reader. Now that points to an interpretation itself as the shadow lines could mean something that is insubstantial and therefore, its existence is doubtful. Another interpretation of the shadow lines could be that they are lines that change positions with the gaze or perspective. Yet another interpretation of the shadow lines could be that they are just a pale imitation of reality.
What are lines associated with? Lines could be boundaries or they could just signify the linearity of relationships. Lines are also used to measuring and dividing length. They are also constructs created by humans and are thus, unreal. Shadow could be referring to the physical shadow that light casts when obstructed by objects. It could also mean protection or security. It could also mean an inseparable companion as a shadow always follows some object or a pale representation of the object. Together, ’shadow lines’ could mean insubstantial boundaries or boundaries that provide a sense of false security or shifting boundaries or boundaries that humans carry everywhere .
The lines are just human constructs that have no real significance. Grandmother asking whether she would be able to see lines on the land separating India and East Pakistan, and the narrator’s father saying that the boundaries start at the airports itself and grandmother trying to find the boundaries in the Dhaka airport. Even though boundaries separate them, grandmother reveals that Dhaka and Calcutta are very similar to each other.
These boundaries are shown to be very flimsy and perspective oriented. The categorisation is based on the perspective of an individual. The best example from the book of this perspective-oriented classification is the way many people look at the riots that killed Tridib. For the narrator’s father, it was an accident, for May it was a sacrifice, for Robi it was a nightmare. An event has been shown as categorised in several ways by different people. They are correct in some way or another but for the people who classify them so, they are experienced in so varied ways and hence, the difference in the classification.
Boundaries demarcate and classify. Man is inherently programmed to classify and form groups of all that he samples by his senses. These classification are generally based on adjectives that are dependent like good, bad, warm, cold, etc. Shadows are known to change shape and size with changing light positions. The light positions could be considered as the perspective of a person and the shadows as the lines that classify. Hence, the perspective determines the classification and as shadow lines demarcate them, they are unreliable.

Author’s way of Presenting Story :

The narrator, Indian born and English educated, traces events back and forth in time, from the outbreak of World War II to the late twentieth century, through years of Bengali partition and violence, observing the ways in which political events invade private lives. Amitav Ghosh refrains from giving him a name. The novel brings into perpestive the fact that one cannot attribute absolute identities to things or events that can’t be 'absolutely' good or bad. The knack of the narrator to go to places hitherto unseen in a manner as if he had visited them before surprises us just as it surprises Nick and Ila. The narrative is simple. It flows smoothly, back and forth between times, places and characters. The use of the first person and therefore a reflective style is very effectively used by Ghosh to say much more than the written word.


PLOT SUMMARY :

It is a rather straightforward story, which follows the life of a young boy growing up in Calcutta and later on in Delhi and London. His family – the Datta Chaudharis - and the Prices in London are linked by the friendship between their respective patriarchs – Justice Dattachaudhari and Alan Tresawsen. The narrator adores Tridib because of his tremendous knowledge and his perspective of the incidents and places. Tha'mma thinks that Tridib is type of person who seems 'determined to waste his life in idle self-indulgence', one who refuses to use his family connections to establish a career. Unlike his grandmother, the narrator loves listening to Tridib. For the narrator, Tridib's lore is very different from the collection of facts and figures. The narrator is sexually attaracted to Ila but his feelings are passive. He never expresses his feelings to her afraid to lose the relation that exist between them. But one day he expresses his feelings when she was changing clothes in front of him being unaware of his feelings. She feels sorry for him. Tha'mma does not like Ila. 'Why do you always speak for that whore' - She doesn't like her grandson to support her. Tha'mma has a dreadful past and wants to reunite her family and goes to Dhaka to bring back her uncle. Tridib is in love with May and sacrificed his life to rescue her from Muslim mobs in the communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka.


CRITICAL ANALYSIS :
The Shadow lines, a novel written by Amitav Ghosh. It was the second novel of him. Language, structure and spirit have coalesced to produce a work of lyrical beauty.
Ghosh’s prose is evocative and realist. The Shadow Lines is written effortlessly and without the baggage of ‘magical realism’.This novel is enigmatically written with a blend of fiction and non-fiction events.Ghosh completely outstands in his language, way of writing, in different moves he took while the story was proceeding. The most difficult part of a book is to show flashback without explicitly taking off reader’s interest and attention from his reading flow. And narrator completely showed his supremacy in this regard. His resonant use of language completely spell bound the readers. Girish Karnad rightly said about him, “Ghosh uses to great effect a matrix of multiple points of view in which memory, mythology and history freely interpenetrate…A delight to read”.
Amitav Ghosh refrains from giving him a name. The novel brings into perpestive the fact that one cannot attribute absolute identities to things or events that can’t be 'absolutely' good or bad.The narrator is a young boy growing up in Calcutta and later on in Delhi and London. As a young boy, he seldom gets to travel farther than his school. And yet his world spans far beyond, across continents. He paints up this world, rather vividly, borrowing colours from others. He uses Tridib’s eyes to view a certain family in London, their house, the streets, the panic of war. He uses his grandmother’s eyes to see her life in Dhaka as a young girl, her uncle and cousins, the other side of the big house where everything was upside down. He uses his cousin’s eyes to view different parts of the world where she travelled, her aspirations for belonging, her heartaches caused by a reality as different from her dreams as she and her background was from those with whom she lived in those foreign lands.
There are two parts in the novel- 'Gong Away' and 'Coming Home'. 'Going away' shows the narrator who has heard about England from a cousin who lived there for sometime and his own discovery of the country when he visits it later in life. 'Coming Home' shows his grandmother visiting her old home in Dhaka, her nostalgia and the discovery of alienation from what she had remembered before Dhaka became part of Pakistan.
His grandmother is passionate for freedom. When she was young during the Swadeshi movement, she wanted to join it and could do anything for her country. She says- 'I would have killed him. It was for our freedom' . She doesn't like western culture at all and never liked Ila. When narrator argues with her about Ila, telling her that Ila lives in London not because of the lure of money or commodities, but for freedom. Ila believes that there are lot of constraints on women in Indian culture. There are lot of decisions which women have to take because of the pressure of the society and culture. Grandmother's response to this is- 'It is not freedom she wants, she wants to be let alone to do as she pleases; that's all any whore would want.' . She doesn't even hasitate to call her a whore.

The narrator grandmother's nationalist faiths fail her because she comes to realize that borders have a tenuous existence, and that not even a history of bloodshed can make them real nad impermeable. Lines on the map are the handiwork of administrators and cartographers. In 1964, as she plans to fly to Dhaka, she wonders if she would be able to see the border between India and East-Pakistan from the plane. When her son laughs at her, she replies- 'Where's the difference then? And if there is no difference, both sides will be the same; it will be just like it used to be before' . The grandmother has a typical state dominated view about nationalism,what she is unable to realize that one can be unsafe even in one’s own country.

May's humanitarianism forces Tridib to stop the car and help the dog lying half-dead on the highway. That same instinct of May led Tridib to lose his life when they were caught in the communal riots of 1964 in Dhaka. She went out of the car trying to save her uncle but Tridib stops her and sacrifices his own life. Torn by her memories, May believes for a long time that she killed Tridib, only at the end, she seems to calm herself and get rid of her torturing guilt when she says- ' He gave himself up, it was a sacrifice. I know I can't understand, I know I mustn't try, for any real sacrifice is a mystery.' .
The title "The Shadow lines" is itself peculiar and mysterious. There is no mention of it even a single time. The shadow lines could be boundaries that humans create and which are insubstantial. The mental boundaries present in the minds of people that limit their vision to what is visible is transcended by Tridib and the narrator by their imaginations. These mental boundaries are shown to be immaterial, as they cannot limit the sights and scenes of the world. Transcending these boundaries is shown to be a human task that broadens the horizons that one sees. This can be interpreted as a philosophical message that humans can broaden their minds just by broadening their scope of view. It can be done by seeing things beyond the visible and the obvious, and by seeing things that are subtle and those that are hidden for various reasons. The shadow lines that mark our horizons are merely shadows of the real boundaries and humans should cross it like Sita crossed the Laxman-rekha.
This is one novel that can be interpreted in so many different ways in so many different perspectives. This is something that the novel seems to be emphasising. The interpretations vary form person to person, as they are dependent on the person. This is the message I see from the novel from my perspective. Of course, someone else may differ on this. This is the beauty of this novel, again from my perspective.

Today is my French exam:19th April,2008. Aujourd hui est mon exam de francais.

Hi got to study for it.....But note there is a cool site for its grammer on "geocities". ----
http://www.geocities.com/sohlhaut/FGHOnline.html

Au revoir.

14th April: My Birthday..

Hey... nothing new, all the same sunlight, same schedule, but some speciality in the date. its 14th and that too of april. So , its an important day, its my janamdin.
As always, my brother takes me to some cool or some really posh place (expensive too at least through my lens), but I wondered what it would be this time. *Some of earlier are which I liked the most mainly because of taste of "chicken tikka" - Khan chacha, Karim(near Jama Masjid), Rajendra dhaba, hotel taj(just posh but poor cuisines), Narula poutpouri(not good....) * This time we went to Parikrama hotel: The revolving hotel.
We had to wait for at least half an hour for a table of two. Then eventually we got in after making some comments on maddu's and their hero icons. First, we got the feeling as if we were traveling in a smooth train. But as the building is very tall, restaurant at 24th floor, it was a nice view of all the buildings and the lights. The quality of food was nice but it was expensive and service was poor. Well, I must cut short my writings as my exams are coming near and I got to know the details of the syllabus to start studying.
On the whole, must visit "Parikrama" with your girlfriend as there is lot of waiting, nice view, good quality food and expensive (* might be a good point sometime *).
Well, Happy birthday to me....

Library

* Fine : for late submission and stealing of library items.
* Collection of magazines.
* Collection of books, especially from seniors
*

Prolog tutorials

Abridgment from the site:http://www.cs.nuim.ie/~jpower/Courses/PROLOG/

In particular, we want to emphasise that Prolog deals with relations and not functions.

Coolest email by my professor ever

It's a mail by some professor of foreign university to our HoD. (Must read)

Dear sir,

The email attached is typical of many that I receive. They all seem to
come from IIT students. The students all claim to have reviewed my web
pages and to be particularly interested in working with me. I have yet
to receive one that shows any evidence that this is true, or indeed that
the writer has any idea whatsoever what research I do. Invariably their
stated interests do not coincide with any of mine. The fact that these
emails all appear to originate from IIT students, they all have similar
format and none of them show any sign that students have actually done
any research (it really looks as if they have written generic emails and
spammed them to every email address they could harvest) suggests that
they might be being instructed to behave this way. I find that hard to
believe, so I imagine it is more likely that they have misunderstood
something, but please could your staff who are responsible for your
internship programme encourage students to apply more selectively? I
fear that this deluge of spam emails from your students is not enhancing
the reputation of your institution, which I understand to be very high.

I've deleted all the identifiers from this email, it doesn't matter who
the student is, I've had many similar emails.

Jim Miles

-------- Original Message --------

Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:04:00 +0530
Subject: IIT Delhi Student - Application for Internship
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;        

Respected Professor

I am a second year Computer Science student at Indian Institute of
Technology (IIT) Delhi ( http://www.iitd.ac.in/ ), which is a world
class institute with state of the art facilities and highly qualified
faculty imparting high quality teaching and training in technical
streams. IIT Delhi lays strong focus on practical knowledge apart from
imparting strong theoretical background which places it amongst the
top technical universities of the world.

Starting from 10th May 2008, I have about 10 weeks summer break during
which I would like to enhance my theoretical knowledge and practical
skills under excellent guidance. I am looking for high growth and
challenging opportunity to exploit my inner talent in the best working
environment and I am confident that I can do very good and meaningful
work in the area of Computer Science. By that time I would have
completed 4 (91 credits) semesters which include courses and projects
that have provided me with adequate fundamental knowledge of Computer
Science, both theoretical as well as practical. I have honed my
programming and technical skills with many projects and assignments
done in various courses related to a wide range of fields in Computer
Science.

I have been through the website and am impressed by the level of
innovative research at your institute.I have gone through the research
pursued by you and I am interested to work with you. I am highly
motivated to pursue research involving application of my knowledge and
more than willing to learn new concepts before working on a project.
An internship under your guidance would be an ideal addition to my
Bachelor's Degree in engineering. I am proficient in English and quick
to learn new languages also.

I am appending my Resume to this email, for your kind consideration.
Hoping for a wonderful learning experience under your guidance.

Looking forward to a favourable response and thanking you for your time.

Yours Sincerely

2nd Yr Computer Science
Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi

Official Information of DE's of CS in IITD

Here is a list of courses and their pre-requirements--------


DEPARTMENT CORE (DC) :

CSL356 Analysis and Design of Algorithms : (3-1-0)
Pre-req : CSL201 & CSL105.

CSL373 : Operating Systems : (3-0-4) :
Pre-req : CSL201 & CSL211 & CSL302 .

CSL374 - - - Computer Networks - - - - (3-0-3) ----- (4.5)
pre-req: CSL201 & CSL 211 & EEL205

DEPARTMENT ELECTIVES (DE) :

Mini project : CSD310 : (0-0-6)
Pre-req : EC = 80 .

CSL303 : Logic for Computer Science : (3-0-2)
Pre-req : CSL201 .

CSL332 : Introduction to Database Systems (3-0-3) :
Pre-req : CSL201 .

CSL333 : Artificial Intelligence (3-0-2)
Pre-req : CSL201 .

CSL361 : Numerical And Scientific Computating : (3-1-2)
Pre-req : CSL101 / CSL102 & EC = 60 .

CSL362 : Simualtion and modelling : (3-0-2) :
Pre-req : CSL201 & MAL250 .

CSL705 : Theory of computation (3-1-0) :
Pre-req : CSL105 & EC = 90 .

CSL719 : Synthesis of Digital Systems :(3-0-2)
Pre-req : CSL316

CSL728 : Compiler Design : (3-0-3)
Pre-req : CSL302 & CSL705 .

CSL740 : Software Engineering : ( 3-0-2)
Pre-req : CSL201 & CSL302 .

CSL781 : Computer Graphics : (3-0-3)
Pre-req : CSL201 & EC =90 .

CSL783 : Digital Image Analysis : (3-0-3)
Pre-req : EEL205 & CSL201 & EC = 90 .

CSP315 : Embedded System Design Laboratory : (0-1-6) :
Pre-req : CSL211 .

CSR310 : Professional Practice : (0-1-2) :
Pre-req : EC = 60 .

CSS310 : Independent Study : (0-3-0) :
Pre-req :  EC =60 .