This passing out batch, i.e.,
2020-22 will go in the annals as ‘the Corona Batch’. Among several
disruptions #Covid19 pandemic brought in, the disruption to education system is
of a curious kind. On one hand it gave ample opportunities to explore new
dimensions in online pedagogy, while on the other hand it made us realize
several vital pedagogical issues, which were, hitherto, taken as granted.
The benefits of teaching
this batch were innumerable. Right from the beginning, it was challenging to
build a rapport with students as students have never visited department or
teachers, personally. To bridge this gap, we tried our best to make teaching as
interesting and engaging as possible. And hence, we have to ‘revisit &
relearn’ pedagogy of teaching in online remote mode. We also have to try our
hands at new technologies like OBS, Live Streaming, Video Recording, Learning
Glass, Video Conferencing etc. It was not only to use these technologies but
also to make it effective and engaging for learners. Going down the memory lane
of screenshots taken during first week of teaching this batch was a good memory
to see how it all began. The Google Class & the Group were introduced in
live video conferencing session – and OBS was used to make it engaging. The
learning glass was also used to see that the teaching does not become dull and
boring. The first two pictures in the below given collage-pyramid are telling this story. However, the story of disruption does not end
here. The other side of the story, the students’ side, had also been of great
learning importance.
The number of students in this Corona Batch was also considerably low than normal class strength. That was like a double whammy. One, virtual existence of all of us and on it, low number. Some may say it is good. Easy to manage! Well, yes, that’s true but we wanted to do lots of activities. Without good number of participations from equally good number of students, it is difficult to carry on the show. We believe, education is not only completing syllabus and the routine academic rigor. It is all about participating in co-curricular, extra-curricular activities like reading papers in seminars, publishing research papers, participating in cultural and sports events. It is not to say that there was complete stand-still to all these activities. However, it reduced drastically in this passing out batch 2020-22. Even with all these limitations of second wave of corona pandemic and lockdowns of academic institutes and activities not happening as such, our students have participated in around 40 events. Have a look at the chart in Memorabilia 2022 – page number 138/139. In spite of reasonably good participation in the troubling time, we were not able to get laurels and accolades. Except for FIRST positions by Riddhi Bhatt in Essay Writing and Khushbu Lakhupota in Research Paper Writing competitions, the participation did not yield desired result. Apart from this sorry state of affairs, even use of library substantially reduced during this year. Normally, all students have their library card and keep on visiting library occasionally to exchange books. This time, several students did not open an account with University Central Library. To add to this sorry state of affairs, several students’ committees remained ineffective or inactive. This is a great lesson to remembered. This is an example of why education is not only completing syllabus. When the students are not able to have physical gatherings in an academic institute, there are innumerable life-skills which are not acquired. Yes, some are genius and they do not require such training or orientation. Nevertheless, we need to build an environment wherein all these life-skills are acquired without much effort. We are unhappy to see that many talented students are passing out without brushing up their talent, many committee leaders are passing out without learning leadership skills, many are passing out without getting the finishing fine touch of our Department of English.
It is not to be concluded
that all was dark and dull. We have seen amazing participation from Kishan, Latta,
and Sneha in various events. Apart from Daya, Nidhi & Riddhi, Latta &
Khushboo have displayed an amazing development in their performances from first
to the last semester. Chandani, Sneha, Jignesh, Bhavyang, Pina & Aditi were
also very good and performed as expected. Hiral and Nandita are talented but
somehow, they were not able explore their potential during the studies.
Bhumika, Anjali & Stuti are also good in several things but were not able
to perform as per their capacities. You all have incredible spart within
yourself. Had there been no corona pandemic, we would surely have been able to
fire it and see the sparkles that you all are capable of.
With a sense of pastness,
we are all supposed to look forward towards future. Bygone is bygone. No one
can amend the past. But future is still in our hand, in our control. From the
pandemic year we learn to be ready for whatsoever befall on us. Without giving
an iota of doubt or an inch of hesitation, we shall be ready to live life it
all its fullest capacity.
On behalf of Department
of English, MKBU, I wish you all a great future.
Let yourself metamorphose
into something so beautiful that we feel proud to say that ‘s/he is our
student’. ~ Dilip Barad
According to an entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica,
rasa, (Sanskrit: “essence,” “taste,” or “flavour,” literally “sap” or “juice”) Indian concept of aesthetic flavour, an essential element of any work of visual, literary, or performing art that can only be suggested, not described. It is a kind of contemplative abstraction in which the inwardness of human feelings suffuses the surrounding world of embodied forms.
The theory of rasa is attributed to Bharata, a sage-priest who may have lived sometime between the 1st century BCE and the 3rd century CE. It was developed by the rhetorician and philosopher Abhinavagupta (c. 1000), who applied it to all varieties of theatre and poetry. The principal human feelings, according to Bharata, are delight, laughter, sorrow, anger, energy, fear, disgust, heroism, and astonishment, all of which may be recast in contemplative form as the various rasas: erotic, comic, pathetic, furious, heroic, terrible, odious, marvelous, and quietistic. These rasas comprise the components of aesthetic experience. The power to taste rasa is a reward for merit in some previous existence.
Bharata Muni enunciated the eight Rasas in the Nātyasāstra, an ancient Sanskrit text of dramatic theory and other performance arts, written between 200 BC and 200 AD.[4] In the Indian performing arts, a rasa is a sentiment or emotion evoked in each member of the audience by the art. The Natya Shastra mentions six rasa in one section, but in the dedicated section on rasa it states and discusses eight primary rasa.[12][21] Each rasa, according to Nātyasāstra, has a presiding deity and a specific colour. There are 4 pairs of rasas. For instance, Hāsya arises out of Sringara. The Aura of a frightened person is black, and the aura of an angry person is red. Bharata Muni established the following:[22]
A ninth rasa was added by later authors. This addition had to undergo a good deal of struggle between the sixth and the tenth centuries, before it could be accepted by the majority of the Alankarikas, and the expression "Navarasa" (the nine rasas), could come into vogue.
Shānta-rasa functions as an equal member of the set of rasas, but it is simultaneously distinct as being the most clear form of aesthetic bliss. Abhinavagupta likens it to the string of a jeweled necklace; while it may not be the most appealing for most people, it is the string that gives form to the necklace, allowing the jewels of the other eight rasas to be relished. Relishing the rasas and particularly shānta-rasa is hinted as being as-good-as but never-equal-to the bliss of Self-realization experienced by yogis (Source Wikipedia).
Amitav Ghosh’s latest novel, Gun Island, traces familiar crosscultural patterns evident in his earlier novels. There are journeys by land and water, diaspora and migration, experiences aboard ships, the world of animals and sea-creatures. Ghosh foregrounds environmental issues like climate change and the danger to fish from chemical waste dumped into rivers by factories, concerns that carry over from earlier books like The Hungry Tide and The Great Derangement.
Gun Island describes the quest of Deen, a scholar and collector of rare books, who returns from New York, his city of domicile, to the Sunderbans in West Bengal to unravel the mystery and legend of a seventeenth-century merchant, Bonduki Sada-gar, translated “The Gun Merchant,” and his persecution by Manasa Devi, mythical goddess of snakes. In a talk held in New Delhi after the release of the novel, Ghosh stated that the merchant “was a trope for trade.” The merchant and the goddess dramatize “the conflict between profit and the world.” In the novel, the goddess pursues the merchant to make him aware of other realities like the animal world: “Humans—driven, as was the Merchant, by the quest of profit—would recognize no restraint in relation to other living things.”
We learn that the old Arabic name for Venice was al-Bunduqevya, which is also the name for guns. Deen concludes that the name Bonduki Sadagar did not perhaps mean the Gun Merchant but the Merchant who went to Venice. When Deen travels to Venice to research further on the Gun Merchant, he discovers that many Bangladeshis are being employed as illegal migrant labor. Their hazardous journey across the Middle East and Africa and the strong, even militant opposition to their presence in the city by Italian authorities form a major segment of the second part of the novel, contrasting with the Gun Merchant’s past, prosperous journey to Venice (Rita Joshi - World Literature Today).
