Stories about monstrous encounters during travel are ubiquitous in every culture. Scholars see them as figurative representations of the cultural anxiety related to traversing the unknown and the encounter with the “Other”. For instance, the early Greek ‘monster-on-the-road’ tales are often read in the context of the expansion of trade among Greek city-states and the Greek colonization of far flung territories which necessitated going beyond the safety of familiar town boundaries. The Indian epics and folktales also abound with encounters of travellers with supernatural/monstrous beings. Whether it is episodes such as the “YakshaPrasna” in the Mahabharata, or the Bodhisatta’s encounter with the Naga and the Yaksha in Buddhist legends, or his encounter with Yakkhinis in the Jataka tales, travel often involved encountering the Dangerous “Other” who had to be defeated/satiated/converted. These early traveller’s tales can be read as records of the anxieties regarding expansion/establishment of the Kshatriya hero’s kingdom where the wild/primitive outside the bounds of civilization had to be conquered/appropriated. In the case of the religious hero, the monster represented a crisis of faith – either he/she was an embodiment of the allures of material pleasure the ascetic had to guard against or a staunch believer of another faith who had to be converted/conquered. All these “forgotten” traditions of travel come together in the Yakshi tales of medieval Kerala where a shape-shifting tree spirit haunting lonely pathways evokes memories of the ancient traveller’s encounter with the wilderness and its corresponding deities. This paper attempts to read these tales from medieval Kerala against earlier Indian traditions of travel as well as the literal and metaphorical crossings of caste and gender borders that travel entailed during the medieval period.

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Anxious Encounters with the (Monstrous) Other: The Yakshi Tales of Medieval Kerala

C Subramania Bharati (1882-1921) and Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976) were significant poet-songwriters of the Indian freedom struggle. Their works explore a wide range of themes – political, philosophical, romantic and devotional. Both poets were educated in rāga music, which is prominent in many of their songs. Bharati wrote in Tamil, while Nazrul wrote in Bangla. It is highly unlikely that they read or were influenced by each other’s works. However, one finds several similarities in their poetry, especially the importance given to the goddess Ādi Śakti in her various forms, Kālī in particular. The goddess plays a major role in their national consciousness; yet, they are not sectarian in their approach, and believe strongly in an inclusive Indian nation. Both of them criticize caste and patriarchy, and turn the worship of the goddess into a revolutionary act. Neither was confined to one religion or to the worship of only one deity, or to one genre of poetry. Bharati, a Tamil Brahmin, challenged the supremacy of his own caste. Nazrul, who was from a Muslim family, sang songs of Islamic and Hindu devotion alike. The goddess occupies a special place in both their hearts. Crucially, both poets used religious imagery propelled by music to convey their progressive and liberationist ideals to a large public. My work is a comparative exploration – the first, to my knowledge – of their songs on the goddess. I choose three broad aspects of the goddess: the beauty within the terrifying; the goddess as a child or daughter; and the goddess of the nation. Through these, I examine points of convergence in their poetry, the musical interpretations of their works, the influence of their contrasting cultural backgrounds, their views on women and caste, and how the goddess inspires them to contribute to the struggle for a free India. 

https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1193&context=yjmr

The Dance of Ādi Śakti: The Goddess in the Songs of Bharati and Nazrul

In this article, the three co-authors collaboratively address practices of queering in relation to the Parisian choreographer of color Nyota Inyoka (1896–1971), whose biography and identity remain mysterious even after extensive research. Writing from three different research perspectives and relating to three different aspects of her life and work, the co-authors analyze Nyota Inyoka and practices of Queering the Archive, her staging of Shiva as a performance of (culturally) “queer possibility,” and the act of remembering Nyota Inyoka in a contemporary context in terms of queering ethnicity and “cultural belonging.” Juxtaposing and interweaving notions and practices of queering and créolité/creolizing over the course of the article, the co-authors attempt to respect Nyota Inyoka's “right to opacity” (Glissant [1996] 2020, 45) and remember her on her own terms.

Remembering Nyota Inyoka: Queering Narratives of Dance, Archive, and Biography

The article narrates a personal journey of learning and unlearning the images in school textbooks, its uses potentials and challenges as experienced by the author. It reflects upon the experiences of the process of selection of these images within the context of political science as a discipline. These experiences have been formed over a decade while working for Eklavya in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, and also at the NCERT in New Delhi. It locates changes in understanding the perspectives on political cartoons and posters as could be used in a school textbook. It also argues that there is a need to rethink ways in which cartoons are used in textbooks. Furthermore, it tells us something about the way political science as a discipline is taught in schools across India.

Political Science and Images in Schooling: Personal Reflections on Textbook Making Process.

Book Review: Performance and Culture: Narrative, Image and Enactment in India:

The article explores the ways in which concerns of history, in terms of content, concepts and methodology, find space or do not find space within textbooks used for teaching languages. These may be...

Kumkum Roy

Papers

Book Review: Performance and Culture: Narrative, Image and Enactment in India:

Handmaidens of History? Exploring English, Hindi and Sanskrit Textbooks for Schools:

Book Review: Donna Jordan, Sakti’s Revolution: Origins and Historiography of Indic Fierce Goddesses