Marginalisation in Untouchable

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COMEDY AND PATHOS IN A.K.RAMANUJANS SMALLSCALE
REFLECTIONS ON A GREAT HOUSE

• R.VINITHA PRIYA
• II M.A. ENGLISH

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A.K.RAMANUJAN

• Attipate Krishnaswami Ramanujan (1929-1993)
• Indian expatriate poet and Scholar
• Wrote both in English Kannada
• Poet, philologist, folklorist, translator and
  playwright
• Sahitya Akademi Award Winner, 1999

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Small Scale Reflections on a Great House

• Speakers reflections on an Ancestral House
• Speaks about the peculiar feature of the Great
  House
• Signifies the Great Indian Culture
• Presents the true picture of Indian Hindu joint
  family
• Reveals the intense yearning for family ancient
  home

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• The house possess an incorrigible property
• Letting anything into its confine without letting
  back free
• Projects the antiquity, rich heritage of culture
• Mocks the so-called tabooisms about natural
  things
• Cows were provided with shelter and gifted with a
  name

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• The mating of bulls was shielded from young girls
  of the house
• But they witnessed through holes in the window
• Library books once borrowed, never returned
• Neighbours dishes once came, never returned
• Servants once employed, never left

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• Disease like epilepsy once entered the blood,
  continued to haunt the generations
• Sons-in-law who came to see their in-laws never
  left the house
• Stayed back to check domestic or office accounts
• Stayed to teach the arithmetic to nieces of the
  family
• Women who came as wives never left the house

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• Things that went of houses could never stay out
  for a longer period of time
• They returned back right on time
• Daughters returned back, who were to short lived
  idiots
• Son returned back with their sons who ran away
• Those little sons obliged the elders in the house

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• The poem is a quaint catalogue of things
• It is a fine piece of social criticism
• About over-crowded Brahmin household of South
  India
• Greatest poetry in world literature
• It revives everything and presented with a touch
  of pathos

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Thank You