Title: India (1): Language
1India (1) Language the Urban Migrants
- Flute Music, Annamalai
- and Salaam Bombay
Migrant populations flock to the outskirts of
cities to find work. (source)
2Starting Questions
- What are the common points among the three texts?
And their differences? - What do you feel about reading them?
- All about the lives of migrant laborers (clerks)
in Indian cities, how they miss home, and how
they get exploited by their bossesseen from
different perspectives (of a migrant adult clerk,
a migrant chaipautea boy--and a master). - Two concern the issue of language letter
writing of hometown and two mention Ganeshthe
bringer of success.
3Outline
- Background (1) Caste System
- Background (2) Language
- Tagore The Flute Music
- R.K. Narayan Annamalai
- Background (3) Bollywood
- Salaam Bombay!
4Background (1) Caste system
- The main castes
- Brahman (priest)
- Kshatriya (ruler, warrior, landowner)
- Vaishya (merchants)
- Shudra (artisans, agriculturalists)
- Harijan "outside" the caste system (once known
as "untouchables") (source http//www.csuchico.e
du/cheinz/syllabi/asst001/spring98/india.htm ) - Musicians-- Harijans (god's children) which
used to be known as untouchables.
5Caste system -- Determined by
- race? In a verse from the first millennium epic,
the Mahabharata, Brigu, the sage explains The
brahmins are fair, the kshatriyas are reddish,
the vaishyas yellow and the sudras are black. - by work The Hindus also believe that a man's
varna is determined by his profession and deeds
and not by his birth. - Varna (caste) came to signify an endogamic(?????)
group, its members linked by heredity, marriage,
custom and profession (source).
6Caste system -- Today
- Seen illegal since 1947
- Two Indias the rich and the poor, not following
the caste lines - In some villages, some lower caste people are
still marginalized, and inter-caste marriage is
still prohibited - In 1998, 60 people were killed by the Ranvir
Sena, a self-styled armed militia of the
upper-caste landed gentry, formed to crush the
movements of Dalits (the untouchables) and
agricultural laborers. 21 killed in 1999.
(sources 1, 2)
7Background (2) Language
- No matter that
- my name is Greek
- my surname Portuguese
- my language alien.
- There are ways of belonging.
8Language English literature in India
- The Charter Act of 1813 East India Company's
responsibility for native education - 1857 the Indian university system
- After independence, English is no longer one of
the 21 official language - Major languages Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam
and Urdu each has more than 10 million speakers.
9Narayans decision to write in English
- We have fostered the language for over a
century. . . And we are entitled to bring it in
line with our own thought and idiom. - Speaking as the English language, he puts
- I will stay here, whatever may be the rank and
status you may assign meas the first language or
the second language or the thousandth. You may
banish me from the classrooms, but I can always
find other places where I can stay. . . I am
more Indian than you can ever be (93.)
10Tagore Flute Music
- 1. A man in poverty--
- compared to a lizard (with Ganeshs picture
stuck on the door) - Suffers from pay cuts, high train cost, and wants
to save the cost of light umbrella full of
holes - 2. His emotional life
- The contrast between the busy city and his lonely
room - Trapped in his office clothes
- his girlsaved from him
- 2. The function of flute music
11 R. K. Narayan
- born in Madras in 1906
- full name Rasipuram Krishnaswami Ayyar
Naranayanaswami - --gt1935 R.K. Narayan
12Narayan the Writer
- V.s. Naipaul (1999) He wrote about people in a
small town in South India small people, big
talk, small doings. That was where he began
that was where he was fifty years later. To some
extent that reflected Narayans own life. He
never moved far from his origins. (The Writer
in India)
13Narayan the Story-teller of village life
- Id be quite happy if no more is claimed from me
than being just a story-teller. Only the story
matters, that is all. . . . But if a story is
in tune completely with the truth of life, truth
as I perceive it, then it will be automatically
significant. - Presenting Mulgudi (an imaginary village) as a
peasant community in (southern) India you see
more concentrated life and you can see the types
and forces of human relationships, activities,
aspirations in greater details. (97)
14Annamalai
- Annamalai his views of his job, and of his
master? And his masters views of him? - Annamalai Language How does Annamalai look at
sending letters home? (e.g. the issues of
village names, his use of English on the address,
asking one to write and the other to address it.)
- Annamalai home
- narrative time and technique How does the story
start? How does it end? Does the story follow a
chronological order? - Can you think of any example in Taiwanese
literature that is similar to this story?
15Annamalai and his Master
- Annamalai p. 117 a custodian of me and my
property cannot intervene A at work p. 133
take him as he was. - Annamalai at work
- 121 vs. in the masters study
- Simple-minded, dividing plants into the
flourishing and the evil ones - balances the good and the evil p. 128
- a lot of water and garbage on the plants p. 128
- Stubborn and with self-contradictory reasoning129
16Annamalai and his Master
- Annamalai off from work
- go for news but cannot comprehend a lot
(Kannedy) (telepoon, trunk call long-distance
call p. 132) - The episode of fowl killing ? his fear and
dignity p. 135 ? his past
17Annamalai and Home
- Very far away p. 120
- Keeps postcard connection, which is cheaper
- Revulsion and curiosity? his brothers postcards.
- As choice between home and work pp. 140-
18Annamalailanguage race/class division
- The postcards serve as connection between A and
his home - linguistic hegemony English vs Tamil
- When the master gets his letters, he is not even
sure if it is from Annamalai. - As a whole, the story shows the distinct
personality of this peasant worker, his sense of
duty and honor, and an inevitable gap between him
and the master.
19Background 3 Bollywood
- ????(Bombay, Mumbai)
- ???????(Dream Factory)????,????(?????????),??????
,????,??????????????? - ????????Meenakshi Shedde?????,???2002?????????????
,??942?,?????????650????????????????,??????????,?
????????????5????(???http//movie.cca.gov.tw/COLU
MN/column_article.asp?rowid27 )?
20Bollywood ????
- ?????? Devdas
- ???????Lagaan
- ??Bollywood ??????????????
- Salaam Bombay (????) -- ???????????,??????-????Go
to Bombay, come back a hero. - Masala -- ???????? ??????????
- Monsoon Wedding (????)--?????????,Punjabi
??????????? - Desperately Seeking Helen -- ??Bollywood
???Helen, ??????????????
21Outline Salaam Bombay!
- BackgroundMira Nair the history of the
production of Salaam Bombay. - Major Theme 1 Migrants in the city
- Major Theme 2 family/comradeship and betrayal
- Major Theme 3 Larger Social Forces
- (Language Differences and Illiteracy
- slums in Bombay, government inefficiency
- Colonialism/tourism -- in the background)
22Introduction to Mira Nair
- Born in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa in 1957 (middle
class family) - Attended the University of New Delhi (Sociology
and Theater) - Went to Harvard in 1976 (Sociology) (source)
23Films by Mira Nair
- Jama Masjid Street Journal (1979)
- So Far From India (1982)
- India Cabaret (1985)
- Children of a Desired Sex (1987)
- Salaam Bombay (1988)
- Mississippi Masala (1991)
- The Perez Family (1993)
- Kama Sutra A Tale of Love (1997)
- My Own Country (1998)
- Monsoon Wedding (2001)
24Salaam Bombay! History of Production
- Interviews of street kids in Bombay.
- Out of these interviews emerged a screenplay that
was a composite of several lives. - Then many of the children were enlisted for
weeks in a daily workshop, not to teach them
"acting" (for that they already knew from
hundreds of overacted Indian film melodramas),
but to teach them how to behave naturally in
front of the camera. (source)
25What happened to the children?
- "Our whole attitude was to meet them halfway and
help them realize their own self-worth and
dignity," said Nair in a recent interview with
The Christian Science Monitor (12 Oct 1988,
p.19). "We wanted to help them create
opportunities they want for themselves."
Responding to this respectful approach, some
children entered school, some returned home to
their villages, some got jobs, and some have
stayed on the streets. - Nair is using proceeds from the film to open
learning centers for street children in both
Bombay and Delhi. (source)
26Salaam Bombay!
- Awards
- the New Director's Award at the Cannes Film
Festival in 1988 an Academy Award nomination for
best foreign film in 1989 - Neo-Realism A departure from Bollywood Musical.
27Salaam Bombay! Questions
- How does Krishna go to Bombay? What is his first
experience of it? (clip 1) - Why is he away from home? Why does he go to
Bombay and what does he want to do there? (clip
711 ) - How does he relate to the people he meets in
Bombay? (e.g. Manju, Sweet 16, Manjus mother,
Chillum, the other street kids.) e.g. Why does
Krishna fall in love with Sweet Sixteen? - Are there any traces of Bollywood musical
influence in the film?
28Major Theme (1) in Salaam Bombay
- Migratory identity people drifted to the
metropolis, lost in the crowd, e.g. shots of the
train station - -- Chaipau his name (Krishna) no home address
- -- Chillum completely lost (not trusting anyone)
- ? hybrid culture and identity (e.g. Chillum,
Manjus danceclip 3 Ms. Hawaii in the movie
clip 6)
29Major Theme (2) desire, betrayal and survival
- Desire for home family
- e.g. Krishna
- -- tries to write home
- -- needs 500 rupees so that he can go home
- -- forms a family in Bombay (Chillum, the
other children). - What about Manjus family?
30Salaam Bombay The migrants in a city (2)
- Manjus family
- Baba child-abuser and pimp
- Mother loving but cannot help
- Manju lonely and in desperate need of love.
(e.g. clips 8, 9, 12, 14)
31Major Theme (2) desire, betrayal and survival
- How do Krishna and the other kids survive?
- Work as Chaipau ? taken advantage of by the other
kids - Skin chicken, clean chicken coops ? fired by the
boss - rob an old man, ? Krishna throws up money taken
away by Chillum. - serve in a rich mans wedding party ? arrested by
the police, money taken away. - For Krishna, it is a continuous process of loss
and disillusionment.
32Salaam Bombay a series of betrays
disillusionment
His wife
Baba
Manju
Krishna
The other street kids
The Sweet Sixteen
The circus boss
33Major Themes (2)
- Comradeship, betrayal and rebellion/survival--
Pattern of Repetition - Drug-dealing the death of the previous drug
dealer, Chillum and then another Chillum. - Cheating Manjus mother cheated, The Sweet
Sixteen - Some are self-destructive and some, surviving
- Chillum has no friend cheats Krishna with his
bank. - Krishnas setting fire as a way of rebellion
against his brother, and then against the
whorehouse - Finally, the major forces of frustration are
those of society the government and the crowd.
34Major Themes 3 Larger Social Forces
- An urban tragedy characters with no names.
- Why are Baba and his wife not named?
- Why do people call Krishna Chaipau?
- What roles do Krishna God play in this film?
And the Chiller room? (clip 20, 22) - Who sends the two kids to Chiller room?
- How is the chiller room presented?
35Salaam Bombay social factors
- State intervention Chiller Room
- drug, prostitution and Bollywood
- traces of collonial influence
- cricket, tourists, statues, movies
- Religion helpless. E.g. Ganesh
36Salaam Bombay the ending
- What do you think about the ending of Salaam
Bombay? Is there any hope for the street
children? What does the spinning top mean? - Can you think of any other film that is
comparable to Salaam Bombay? - Children of Heaven ?????
37Next time . . .
- Womens experiences of Racial, Class and national
divisionesp. childrens.
38References
- Roger Elbert. SALAAM BOMBAY!