Thoughts on attending a literary symposium

Its not often that I wake up and get writing. Usually. I strive my best to avoid
anything that requires the pushing of the pen; nevertheless, situation sometimes
demands immediate attention of the creative mind and it becomes impossible to
turn away. Last week, I was attending a conference organized by the university and
partook of the intellectual pleasure involved in basking in scholarly ideas
propounded by a line of talented academicians. Although several papers presented
at the conference unequivocally deserved an elevated seat, there were others which
were not only inferior, but also downright pitiable in their academic capability.
Ambiguous, self-contradictory and lacking in intellectual depth, these papers
presented at the conference failed to struck a right chord and abraded the mind
generally mollified by unembellished intellectuality.
On the one hand the conference offered the way to composing a well-edited and
well-documented research paper bolstered by arguments; on the other, the
contrapuntal exposition of dismal writing was only too evident to ignore. As I sit
at my desk on this early spring morning of the first day of the week imbibing the
cacophony of mechanized quadrupeds and millipedes, my mind wanders and
settles itself on thoughts of the conference and the papers that struck me by their
merits and demerits.
A talk on the importance of literature and how literature is never neutral despite an
artists apolitical, asocial stance was an important, albeit hackneyed, premise that
began the three-day long academic proceedings for me. The speaker of the early
session, a noted academician, spoke at length about literature being imbricated
with elements of social realism. According to him even the most esoteric tokens of
a creative mind are an effort to consciously manipulate language and artistry so as
to communicate a certain ideology directly or indirectly to a reader. The modernist
texts, the transcripts laden with abstractions, the works of Joyce, Chomsky and
Eco, all share a similar purpose: they all strive to communicate with a reader. And
in this process of communication, an authors latent ideology, her frame of mind,
her intellectual propensities all evident or hidden under layers of conscious or
unconscious literary mysticism find expression in the text she composes. A
denizen and an integral element of her society, the societys fictional refraction or
non-fictional reflection inevitably occupies a fundamental space in the writers
work. The scholar noted that neutrality in a creative work is unequivocally the
most undesirable element, since its a departure from the embryonic purpose of
literature: to heighten human consciousness and to sensitize it by unleashing the
tidal wave of catharsis.
Another paper that touched base with one of the leading talking points in Indian
English literature: the importance of incorporating the Bhasa texts in the study of
Indian English was exceptionally well-presented and was intellectually
invigorating. The paper incorporated the critical imperative to canonize the tokens
of Indian literature into a significant and compacted category. It proposed that the
nuances of Indian writing, the myriad contrapuntal tonalities of Indian English, the
social scenario that daubs the writers psyche, the elemental influence of the
spatial-temporal element in a writers work all need to be considered from an
indigenous point of view when critiquing a work of Indian English literature. Here,
the hybridized tropes of western literary criticism falls short of adequately
deracinating the qualities of a literary work psychologically and socially ingrained
in the ethnic soil; hence, a distinct categorization of Indian English writing is
indispensable.
On the second day, I savored the flavorful mulligatawny of childrens lit, young
adult literature, the absurd nous of nonsense poetry, eco-criticism, and post-
colonialism, etcetera. Having surmounted the acclivity of enthrallment, aversion,
torpor, insouciance and finally, illumination, I came back home my head full of
ideas and my mind filled with newfound admiration for the art of literary
communication. An initial discourse on the popular fairy tale of Little Red Riding
Hood talked about the overt sensual cues impleached within the threadwork of the
story. The implications of the color red, its intrinsic association with sexuality, and
the primeval suggestiveness of the leitmotif of the big bad wolf in fairytales were
some of the interesting points discussed.
A critical study of the story of Snow White through the psychoanalytic lens of Carl
Jung was the central thesis of an excellent paper presented by a research scholar
from IIT Roorkie. The intrinsic merit of her work, coupled with her excellent
presentational skills abridged time for me. I sat in awe of her subject wondering
how the seemingly innocuous genre of childrens literature is thickly laden with
inner meaning. Another presentation by a graduate student from Viswa Bharati, the
intellectual ryokan of the East of India, was illuminating as well. Her work
featuring popular fairy tales in Bangla talked about gender, readership, the idea of
male impotence as a recurrent theme in several of the stories and the motif of the
antur ghar (in-home labor room) as a gendered space that held in abeyance the
laws of patriarchy governing a feudalistic Bengali household were interesting
points of conversation.
The intellectual bouillabaisse was further flavored by a talk on Thoreous Walden,
a favorite text I often go back to when the need to connect with the inner self
suggests itself. The Transcendentalists deliberations on solitude, thrift, the honing
of the skill of self-sufficiency, the need to conserve nature were all part of the
paper. Though mediocre in content and lacking in originality, the speakers attempt
to play a beautiful video of Nature speaking to her children smoothed the
irregularities of her presentation for me. Here, I couldnt help but wonder why
nurturing is still regarded in popular culture as the domain of the materfamilias.
Although its time we deconstruct the trite impression of the nurturing mother and
consider her as a human being imbued with several other characteristics apart from
her tendency to nurture, we must agree that attempts by Feminist scholars alone
cannot invoke a tectonic shift in the outlook of the all and sundry. Change is never
a linear process.
Having convinced myself as to the overall intellectual impact of the papers
presented at the conference, I found myself wholly unprepared for the
consternation I was destined to receive in the guise of a paper that dealt with the
Harry Potter series and the Twilight saga. Full to the brim with enthusiasm as to
the intellectual treat I thought I was to receive, I found myself shell-shocked when
the self-contradictory arguments of the research scholar hounded me like times
running chariot. An uncompromising aficionado of Rowlings Harry Potter series,
a self-confessed magic loving muggle, I have spent many a happy hour gloating in
Rowlings world of fantasy, conjuring charms, wondering what my Patronus
would look like. The glamour of the presentation topic weighed heavily on me as I
listened to the content proposed by the scholar. Arrhythmia set in with unusual
severity the more I sat and listened to the presentation. The scholar made it a point
to malign my favorite series by blatantly declaring that many adults in her country
(she came from a neighboring nation) look down upon the Harry Potter series. She
further defaced it by saying that it is read specifically by teenagers and young
adults since it lacks any link with reality. Here, I wonder, if it isnt an erroneous
gesture to cast aspersions at fantasy literature because of its apparent disconnection
with reality. Can we be so audacious as to disdain such mighty tokens of literary
merits like the Narnia series, the Discworld saga, the Alice Stories, Harry Potter
and many more as artless works of fiction unfit to occupy the bookshelves of our
kakotopia? Arent they the measures to provide respite from the pains hurled by
political bludgers (READ: JNU, sedition, dissent, nationalism-anti-nationalism
debate: I hate you all) in our dystopic reality? I think they are. Also, I believe, any
student of literature who adopts the monotheistic attitude of accepting a book by its
face value without interrogating its intrinsic assets and disadvantages, once who
could easily relegate a text based on its genre is a simpleton clearly unfit to study
and appreciate the depth that humanities offers. I never got a chance to question the
presenter as to why, being an agnostic, she chose to work on popular tales of
fantasy. Can you really progress with your research work if you are convinced by
your topics latent solemnity? A line of vociferous arguments disarmed our young
scholar and she found herself utterly baffled when confronting the questions of
several teachers and students. I did not add to her woe.
A subsequent presentation on the nonsense literature composed by Sukumar Ray
began with a list of interesting arguments. The author of the paper, in spite of his
serious lack of presentation skills and a paper that traversed a belabored path,
pointed out with great incisiveness how Sukumar Rays poetic renderings were in
reality acerbic criticisms directed at the imperial masters and their loyal servants,
the Bengali Bharolok, indigenous gentlemanly characters imperial in spirit. The
authors critical investigation of several of Rays poems was insightful in
rekindling a renewed respect for an author every Bengali girl indisputably adores.
The fascinating final note of the day was provided by the presentation on the
orientalist cartoons published in the Punch magazine. The penultimate paper, the
award winning submission of the year, was an excellent intellectual document that
studied a series of cartoons featuring in the Punch magazine and pointed how they
propelled the imperialist cause, propagated the orientalist myth of a regressive and
uncivilized orient that needs the masterful occidental potentate to survive, thrive
and lead attain the basics of a civilized life.
The proceedings of the day concluded with a lecture on the postcolonial novels pf
our day, their nuances and their unique creative focus. The academician presenting
the paper talked about the postcolonial tomes as conscious raising artistic attempts
focusing on the composite postcolonial environment for its creative prompts and
often deconstructing the orientalist myths propagated by the imperial gaze during
the protracted period of colonial incubation.
As I came home that day with mind filled with thoughts and ideas, I couldnt but
congratulate myself for being a perennial scholar of the humanities and for having
the leisure and the opportunity to allow myself to marinate in the intellectual juice
of academia and imbibing some its creative and critical insights in the process.