NIRANJAN MOHANTY: The Man and His Poetry

by: Sudhir K. Arora


ISBN 978-81-7977-412-0

Price Rs. 80.00

pp.: 148


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Prof. Niranjan Mohanty authored the eight poetic volumes namely: Silencing the Words (1977), Oh This Bloody Game!(1988), Prayers to Lord Jagannatha (1994),On Touching You and Others Poems (1999), Life Lines (1999), Krishna (2003), Tigers and Others Poems (2008) and A House of Rains (2008). He was, indeed, a great poetic pilgrim who began his journey as an outsider and ended as an insider. He successfully developed his poetic idiom in English which was quite innovative. He was a critic and translator of repute. He translated from Oriya and Bengali into English and Bengali into Oriya. His Oriya translated work Nirjhar, a volume of sixty poems of Jibanananda Das was published by Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi. Sarup and Sons also published his translated work Sangram Jena’s Poems of Passion. He was the single largest contributor of articles (more than 25) on the poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra. His poetry breathed life in all its dimensions. Orissan landscapes, Contemporaneity, time, death, identity-question, absences, loneliness, memory, dreams, inner struggle, rain, devotion, respect for the family and home etc. were the different threads with which he weaved the texture of his poetry. As a poet and a man, he was human to the core.

LIST OF CONTENTS:


Preface
Acknowledgements
A Tribute to Prof. Niranjan Mohanty
Excerpt from Prayers to Lord Jagannath

Niranjan Mohanty : The Man
Silencing the Words: The Jungle of Obscurity
Playing the Game of Life: A Commentary on Oh This Bloody Game!
Prayers to Lord Jagannatha: An Epitome of Jagannatha Culture
Learning through Touches: A Critique of On Touching You and Other Poems
Reading Life Lines: A Critique of Life Lines
Celebrating Womanhood: A Feminist Reading of Niranjan Mohanty’s Krishna
A Peep into Niranjan Mohanty’s Tiger and Other Poems
A House of Rains: A Critical Study
Postcolonial Consciousness in the Poetry of Niranjan Mohanty

Conclusion
Bibliography
Niranjan Mohanty’s Four Poems

RUSKIN BOND Interpreter of Human Relationships

by: RAM KULESH THAKUR









ISBN 978-81-7977-411-3

Price: Rs. 80.00

pp.: 80


With his versatile, original and elegant writing style, Ruskin Bond has secured for himself a place among the most successful Indian short story writers.

The present study, a short literary monograph, seeks to highlight Ruskin Bond in a new perspective. He has been accredited with Nature writings and writings for the entertainment of children. Apart from a rich pictorial description of Nature, traveling experiences, supernatural elements, and nostalgic memories, Bond also presents a web of human relationships in his short stories. His stories depict such unexplored relationships as ‘Child-Stranger’, ‘Child-Child’, ‘Child-Parent’, ‘Male-Female’, ‘Male-Male’ and ‘Human-Nature’.

The text-centred study, besides assessing his position among the contemporary Indian English Writers, presents a detailed classification of his writings into several categories and further sub-categorizes the short stories on the basis of the human relationship they discuss. It analyses human relationships in terms of the characters’ psychological attitude, behaviour and defence mechanisms such as “Rationalization”, “Phantasy”, “Projection”, “Identification” and “Withdrawl.” This should help explain and appraise Ruskin Bond’s understanding and grasp of human mind, character, attitude, and behaviour on the one hand, and the social structure and milieu, on the other.

In brief, it provides a new dimension to the short stories of Ruskin Bond. No study has been carried out till date on the ‘human relationship’ in Bond’s short stories or the psychology at work in the human relationships depicted by Bond.

Ruskin Bond, already established as one of the most celebrated English short story writers, is included in the syllabuses of many Indian Universities at the Bachelor/Honors and Master’s Degree level. The book should help students understand the writer in fresh light, and also motivate some of them to explore Bond for higher studies.

(from the Preface)