ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF LITERATURE AND ENVIRONMENT

Asle- India

ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF LITERATURE AND ENVIRONMENT

ASLE – India was born on 15th January, 2005 the first day of the tamil new year. It is significant that this day marks the harvest festival. It is the day when the land replenishes the household it nourishes and sustains. ASLE stands for as sympathetic and compassionate understanding of the human and the natural world .it is envisaged as a forum for the study of literature and the environment.

There are two significant complementary concepts that occur in the tamil sangham poetics- akam and puram. akam corresponds to interior/ inner aspect, and puram is its complement or counterpart, akam can also be seen as the household affirming the kinship among humans, nature and culture, while puram can also stand for the non-human, exterior world that humans engage with, the two are of course, inextricably linked. This affirmation has been given expression to and represented in various ways in art, literature and culture especially in this part of the world, from very early times.

ASLE—India intends to provide a platform for its members to explore the literary/ artistic representations of the interior household in which both humans and non-human beings have their being, as well as of the exterior world out there which unites with it, striking a complementary relationship. Today this area of exploration, well known as ecological-criticism, draws the scholarly attention of researches, intellectual’s professionals and academics alike. This forum will be the site of such explorations, particularly relevant to the Indian context. The sangham to Tinai can also help us as a conceptual tool in our aesthetic exploration of the various modes of human-nature relationship- hence we have chosen this name for the newsletter of ASLE India. Conferences. Workshops and other appropriate academic activities will be the special convergent points for our members to share expertise in the area and learn from each other. This newsletter is but just a beginning. So much remains for us to explore and understand together.

THE CROW

A short short story by Chandrika*

When the wife of the mighty industrialist of the city died, the owners of all the shops in the city decided to close down their shops for three days as a token of mourning. Of course there were some people who talked in hush-hush that it was the industrialist’s

Political as well as pecuniary influence that made the shop- owners takes such a drastic step. Wives of industrialists have died earlier too: no shop-owner had mourned them for three days. Some people even complained that this decision was autocratically taken by one or two shop – owners who wanted to please the industrialist. One among them even joked that it would have been only one day’s mourning had it been the industrialist who had died!

Though several people talked like this, all of them promptly attended the funeral. They hung around the industrialist’s house in the following days too to render any help needed. The only son of the industrialist, brought down from Love-dale, Ootty performed the obsequies from the nest day onwards as the people on with shows of grief outdoing even the oscar Award winners.

The Love-dale boy rolled the rice into shapeless balls, placed them on a plantain leaf and invited the mother’s soul to come and feast. He clapped his hands as sign of invitation and stepped back, waiting for the soul that would comes as a crow and accept the offering.

But no crow turned up!

The priest said- “The Lady’s soul is not pleased “

The industrialist muttered to himself. “When was she ever pleased? Always a nuisance! “

The priest instructed the boy to clap again. All eyes roamed around the empty sky and the

Garden- plants and came back.

Time slowly slipped by.

“Can we buy crows? “Someone asked.

“No, “he was answered. “We can buy parrots peacocks, mynahs, love birds etc, but not crows don’t think any one ever thought of buying crowns.”

“But in future we may have to make some arrangement like that”. Said a minor industrialist”

Crows are getting rare- now-a – days.”

“May be because we don’t leave them even a branch to sit on. “Some one observed.

“Hey, why don’t we start a project for that? “, a sharp-witted trader reflected aloud.” We will rear crows to be supplied at obsequies. We can make good profit.”

“But they may fly off after eating the rice. Where would the project be then?”

“Train them on opium; they have to come back them.”

People became restless as time went by with no sign of any crow. The Love-dale boy, clad in wet towel sneezed twice. the industrialist got worried.” He had got chest infection earlier. Let’s leave the rice here and go inside. Let the crow come and eat the rice if it wants! “

He walked in, holding the son to him, followed by the crowd. The lifted the extinguished lamp and went to the back entrance of the house.

The security guard sat down in his kiosk with relief and lighted a beedi

“Saaar! “

He turned around sharply and saw that it was a girl standing outside the closed bars of the gate. She was clad only in a short and shabby skirt, revealing her rib-ridden chest, both the skirt and the body full of dirt. He tried to frighten her by rolling his eyes, and asked in a rough voice “Hmm? What do you want?”

“Saaar. There are no crows here. “

“So?”

“That rice –may I take that rice, saaar ? I am so hungry.”

The guard looked at her, wondering whether dead souls would come as hungry girls too

(* Translated from the Malayalam by the author Dr.Chandrlka is better known as chandramathi in literary circles)

Note: Reader’s responses to this story are welcome

Some Responses to ASLE – INDIA

ASLE INDIA

President Dr S. Murali

General Secretary Dr. Rajesh Kumar

Joint Secretaries Dr Usha V T

Dr.Binod Mishra

Mr. Maitreya

Members of the Executive Committee:

Ms Annie Josphine

Ms Dhishna

Ms Srikumar

Ms Asha

Ms Sankar

Membership of the ASLE India is open for everyone – environmentalists, creative writers and artists, critics and theorists, and especially for those who care for nature Annual Membership Fee: Rs 500 / - student Membership Rs 150/ - All members will receive copies of the Newsletter and details of activities. Send money as DD payable at pondicherry India. For more details contact Mr. Suresh Dept. of English Tagore Arts College, pondicherry, India.

A Brief Report on the National Seminar on Ecocriticism and Literature held by Department of English, Vinoba Bhave University, Hazaribag, Jharkhand.

The Department of English, vinoba Bhave university, Hazaribag, Jharkhand .organised a National seminar on Ecocriticism and Literature on September 12 2005, in which a large number of teachers and research scholars from different universities of India participated to examine the bonds between man, nature and literature to evaluate and redefine the anthropocentric concerns of the ecological question. The first of its kind to be held in any university in Eastern India, The seminar opened with the keynote address delivered by Dr.S. Murali Dept. of English, pondicherry university, emphasizing the need for immediacy of experience to foreground the critical sensibilities of students and teachers by real-time interaction with ecological concerns and contours beyond the classroom .He also added that ecocritics are rediscovering early writers ,rereading the classics from a green perspective and beginning to frame their subject in a theoretical way .Dr.Y. Prasad. President of the seminar, spoke about the roots of the ecocritical tenet in Indian scriptures while Dr.R.Kumar .Chief convener and Head of Department of English, V.B.U., analysed nature constructs in traditional songs of the oraon tribe the forest people inhabiting the western parts of Jharkhand Dr.S.B. Shukla, former Head Department of English Allahabad university, and president . WASLE , also addressed the plenary session in his speech on the ecocritical sensibilities in contemporary Indian literature The seminar was inaugurated by the Vice-Chancellor, V.B.U. ., Dr. Bahura Ekka, a member of the Oraon tribe.Dr. Ekka brought out the environmental nuances of aboriginal literature and expressed his conviction for recording the unconfigured oneness of man and nature in tribal oral literature.

The one day seminar also saw teachers from science and social sciences presenting their papers on wide ranging perspectives of ecocriticism. Dr.P.K.Mishra a botanist, expressed his opinions on pre-and post-stockholm environmentalism and correlated it with the scientific description of the hydrological cycle as mentioned in the Vedas . DR .Sadique Rajak, a psychology teacher, came up with an interesting content analysis of the tribal perception of ecology .Dr.P.K.David from Gossner college and Dr.Juthika Banerjee from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, jointly expounded the value- centredness of the ecocritical texts and put stress on holistic vision as an indispensable tool for cosmic sustenance . The parallel technical sessions in the afternoon were enlivened by an interesting give and take between students, paper readers and environmentalists.A large number of the students of the university wanted to know if ecocriticism had any relevance for them .Dr. Mani.Sinha, also the organizing secretary of the seminar, explained to them that the relevance they were seeking for lay not only in academic exercised but also in the consciousness and understanding of the ecological problematic in the villages and the towns they came from .Sagar Dan from Burdwan university reinterrogated ecofeminism in a study of Mudrooroo’s Doctor Wooreddy’s while amitav

Ghosh’s the Hungry Tide was dissected methodically by several participants including Bonani Chatterjee from Kashi Vidyapeeth and R.Konar from Burdwan.N.S nabi’s paper from the university of Bradford was also on the programme but it could not be read out due of communication delays. The valedictory session concluded with a scholarly discourse on the interactive with a scholarly discourse on the interactive possibilities between chemistry, ecology and literature by Dr.Salil K. Roy, pro-Vice-Chancellor (VBU)

The Association of the study of Literature and Environment

( ASLE , pronounced “AZ-lee”) was founded in October 1992 to promoted the exchange of ideas and information bout literature and other cultural representations that consider human relationships with the natural world. The name of the organization is meant to be as inclusive as possible, encompassing any text that illuminates the ways humans perceive and interact with the nonhuman environment.

An active and energetic community ASLE encourages and seeks to facilitate both traditional and innovation scholarly approaches to environmental literature, ecocritical approaches to all cultural representations of nature and interdisciplinary environmental research, including discussions among literary scholars and environmental historians, economists, journalists, philosophers psychologists, art historians, scientists , and sholars in other relevant disciplines.

In addition to encouraging new nature writing. We foster contact between scholars and environmentally engaged artists, including writers, photographers, painters, musicians and film makers, we also promote the incorporation of environmental concerns and awareness into pedagogical theory and practice