Creative Saplings (CS) (ISSN: 0974-536X) CODEN: CSABCJ is an international peer-reviewed (refereed), open access, monthly online journal of English language and literature from India. Creative Saplings has an expert editorial board and reviewers to analyze and select literary works from the English language, literature, and criticism. Creative Saplings publishes the unpublished, most original, and scholarly articles of students, scholars, and academicians from all over the world.
SAFE: (Society For Academic Facilitation and Extension, Regd.), Head office: 53, Karamchari Nagar, Bareilly 243112 (UP) India
Chiraiya: Drama, Social Thriller, JioHotstar, 2026, Stars: Divya Dutta Sanjay Mishra , Prasanna Bisht. Directed by Shashant Shah and produced by SVF Entertainment
Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Myth as Philosophy: A Philosophical Study of How Indian and South Asian Myths Encode Worldviews, Ethics, and Cosmology
This paper conducts a philosophical study of myth in the Indian and South Asian tradition, proposing the contemporary relevance of mythological texts like the Vedic hymns, the Upanishads, the Puranas, the epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana, as well as the living folk mythologies of various sub-regional populations. The paper aims to examine advanced philosophical systems, encoding cosmological, epistemological, ethical and anthropological insights of profound depth and contemporary significance. It will also explore the nature of myth not as a cultural phenomenon, but as what the philosopher Paul Ricoeur described as "a mode of being-in-the-world", a way of knowing the world that is not less but only differently serious than the systematic traditions of philosophy, differing from them only in method, medium and the nature of the relationship. The paper draws on the tools of phenomenology (Heidegger, Ricoeur), comparative religion (Eliade, Smith), mythology studies (Campbell, Doniger), Indian philosophy (Matilal, Mohanty) and postcolonial studies (Nandy, Chakrabarty), and is structured along six philosophical themes: I. The nature of myth as philosophical discourse. II. Vedic cosmogony as ontological inquiry. III. The Upanishadic internalization of myth. IV. Puranic ethics and the moral cosmology of karma and dharma. V. The Epic tradition as philosophical narrative. VI. And the folk myth as subaltern philosophy. The paper contends that Indian mythology represents what can be called a "mythological philosophy" in which the narrative and the analytical, the symbolic and the logical, the experiential and the doctrinal are not discrete but held in productive friction with each other to yield insights unavailable to either pure narrative or pure systematic philosophy. It concludes with a sketch of a contemporary approach to Indian mythology that seeks neither to romanticize myth as arcane mystery nor to rationalize myth as primitive superstition, but seeks to recuperate Indian mythological philosophy as a living resource for contemporary cosmological, ethical, consciousness and humanist thinking.
Indian mythology, myth as philosophy, Vedic cosmology, Puranic ethics, Upanishadic thought, comparative mythology, dharma, karma, maya, cosmogony, South Asian worldview, mythological epistemology, folk mythology, sacred narrative, philosophical anthropology.
Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp, New Delhi: ‎Penguin, 2025, ISBN-13 :‏ 978-9367902295, Pages: 246, Paper back: Rs. 248/-
From Nadi to New Delhi: A Reading of Satendra Nandan's Recollections of India
Indian diasporic literature is a remarkably rich and prominent branch of Indian literature. If we speak specifically of Indian English literature, a very large number of its writers are primarily diasporic Indians for whom writing serves as a medium to revisit India and to reclaim their Indian roots. While the excellent quality and remarkable range of literature produced by many diasporic Indian writers has been duly acknowledged and appreciated, in India and beyond, there are many more who remain, even today, unheard, uncharted, and unexplored. These are largely writers who do acknowledge their Indian past, and who carry and assert their Indianness, but who do not recognise themselves as Indians, nor do they recognise India as their homeland. For them, the homeland is that island which their grandparents had decided to adopt as a new home for themselves, and as the future homeland for their posterity. It is from within this complex and layered relationship to India, neither the homeland nor entirely foreign, neither fully claimed nor fully relinquished, that their writing emerges. This article addresses this unexplored territory of Indian diasporic literature by focusing on the writings of one of the most prominent Indo-Fijian writers, namely Satendra Nandan. The article is primarily an analysis of Nandan's non-fiction, particularly his autobiography, Requiem for a Rainbow: A Fijian Indian Story (2001), and his collection of political essays, Fiji: A Paradise in Pieces, Writing Ethics-Politics (2000), in which he not only recounts and reflects upon his sojourn in India, but also offers critical and incisive observations on India – its history, culture, society, and contemporary politics – as well as his own evolving understanding of the idea of India itself.
Nonfiction, Indian Diaspora, Autobiography, Girmitiya, Homeland, India and Indianness.
Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Hanuman in Graphic Avatar: Reframing Ramayana in Vikram Balagopal’s Simian
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-style-textoutline-type: none; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dpiwidth: .75pt; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-linecap: round; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-join: bevel; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-pctmiterlimit: 0%; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dash: solid; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-align: center; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-compound: simple; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The epic tales have endured and thrived in graphic versions in multiple guises by intertwining of genres and styles like sci-fi infused, Ramayana 3392 AD, experiments with indigenous art forms like Arni’s Sita’s Ramayana, and individualistic representations like Amruta Patil’s Adi Parva. This article analyses Vikram Balagopal’s graphic novel, Simian (2014), to apprehend how the author/artist subverts the central themes of Ramayana by retelling the story from the perspective of Hanuman. Since the mainstream versions of the Ramayan accord an important but a liminal status to Hanuman, it is imperative to examine to what extent does Balagopal probe into the potential that Hanuman’s character holds for re-visioning the epic. It’s intriguing to discover that a filmmaker by training, Balagopal, instead of employing a cinematic mode, consciously chooses to adapt the Ramayana into a graphic narrative format. This paper attempts to explore the possibilities and challenges that this emerging medium of story-telling poses, and the manner in which the textual and the visual correlate, negotiate, oppose or reaffirm each other to create new meanings within the epic narrative. It further investigates how this recent retelling of the Ramayana in a graphic mode interacts with the pre-existent multi-medial Ramayana tradition.
Ramayana Retellings, Hanuman, Graphic Novel, Retcon, Multi-mediality.
The poem muses on the loss of childhood innocence and its replacement by the vexing responsibilities of adulthood. It reflects on past experiences of happiness, playfulness, and freedom - characterised by innocent joys such as games, laughter and living without stress. Over time, these recollections are juxtaposed with the challenges of adulthood, in which the pursuit of material success and responsibility overshadows the joys and freedoms of childhood. This transformation is shown to have physical and emotional consequences, as the speaker's life becomes burdened by stress, lethargy and diminished health. As an older adult, the speaker appreciates the significance of those earlier times, too late learning the importance of savouring the present moment. In the end, the poem offers a contemplative and warning message, encouraging us to regain and maintain the art of living, to care for our body and soul, and to remember our inner child while it's still time.
Digital Literary Consciousness: Exploring AI as Author, Reader, and Critic
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-style-textoutline-type: none; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dpiwidth: .75pt; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-linecap: round; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-join: bevel; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-pctmiterlimit: 0%; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dash: solid; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-align: center; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-compound: simple; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HI;">The advent of artificial intelligence as an agent in literary creation, reading, and evaluation indicates an essential restructuring of what we in this paper refer to as digital literary consciousness. Based on the post-structuralist literary theory and, specifically, the work of Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and Mikhail Bakhtin, as well as on the digital humanities studies and ethical theories, this paper will be able to analyse the various functions that AI currently holds in the literary ecosystem. It proposes the idea that the concept of authorship as a singular human action should be rethought as a distributed, collaborative and algorithmically mediated process. AI serves as an author in four types of algorithmic authorship: fully text-generated, human-directed collaboration, adaptive interactive story, and intertextual remix. As the reader, AI does stylometric analysis, sentiment mapping, extracts narrative structure, and gives a recommendation; however, the interpretive authority of the work is subject to algorithmic bias and alignment problems. AI can provide computational stylistics and thematic evaluation at scale, but not human ethical, aesthetic or cultural judgment, as a critic. The paper situates these changes in the wider historical context from oral tradition to print culture to digital media, and explores the ethical and legal issues of plagiarism, attribution, representation, and labour, concluding with pedagogical implications for teaching literature in the age of intelligent machines.
Digital literary consciousness, artificial intelligence, computational authorship, algorithmic reading, machine criticism, ethics, pedagogy.
The Struggle for Equality in the Face of White Supremacy in Ralph Ellison’s The Black Ball
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-style-textoutline-type: none; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dpiwidth: .75pt; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-linecap: round; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-join: bevel; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-pctmiterlimit: 0%; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dash: solid; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-align: center; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-compound: simple; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Racism in the United States of America originates in the colonial era and it continues to be a pertinent issue in the American society even today in the 21st century. Despite the enactment of laws against racial discriminations against African-American communities, racial segregation and injustice are still widespread in the US. “The Black Ball” is one of the four lyrical short stories of Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914-1994), the other being “Boy on a Train”, “Hymie’s Bull”, and “In a Strange Country”, which concern the issues of identity, racism, discrimination, and opposition stoking up the struggle for equality. The racial discrimination is faced and its stigma is deeply experienced by John, an African-American, and his four year old son in the white dominated American society of the 1940s. The reactions and responses of the two succeeding generations show how a father protects his son from realization of the crude facts of life in a racist society and the ugly side of the racial discriminations but there is also hope because of their struggle against racism and their emerging spirit of resistance against the white supremacy. This paper seeks to explore the different layers of racial discriminations as presented in this story.
Black-Ball, Union, Identity, White-Supremacy, Black-Resistance, Racism, Discrimination, and Humiliation.
Plastic Poetry: The Sculptural Imagination of Language in English Literature
The current research paper critically analyses the idea of ‘plastic poetry’ as a transformative and interdisciplinary form of poetic expression in the present-day English literature. Going beyond the traditional perception of poetry as a linear and purely linguistic expression, the paper examines how plastic poetry redefines the meaning-form interrelation by prefiguring visuality, spatial structure, and materiality of words. The study follows the historical development of plastic poetry, beginning with early ‘pattern poetry’ and the ‘metaphysical experiments’ of George Herbert, an eminent poet from the school of John Donne’s poetry, and the modernist experimentation of Calligrams by Guillaume Apollinaire, a French poet and playwright, and the ‘concrete poetry movement’ organized by Eugen Gomringer, a Bolivian-born Swiss Concrete poet. Based on semiotics, structuralism, phenomenology, and postmodernism, the analysis claims that plastic poetry breaks the conventional signifier-signified relationship and turns the poem into a multisensory and participatory experience. In addition, the venture scrutinizes the main aesthetic principles of plastic poetry such as combination of form and content, engagement of the reader, and the importance of visual perception in sense-making. It also places this innovative genre of poetry in the digital era, underscoring its reformation as an interactive and multimedia poetry, which is enabled by the evolution of technology, hypertext, animation, and virtual worlds. The analysis belongs not only to the critical considerations about the validity, availability, and the aesthetical value of plastic poetry but also to the exploration of the philosophical essence of it in the perspectives of existentialism and phenomenological discerning. The enquiry, ultimately, intends that plastic poetry is not a break but a broadening of the possibilities of poetry, a dynamic and immersive and social responsive literary practice. It proclaims that plastic poetry as a bridge between literature, visual art, and digital media is an imperative approach that is indicative of the encounters of modern human experience and redefines the future of poetic expression.
Plastic Poetry, Pattern Poetry, Concrete Poetry, Visual Poetry, Digital Literature, Form and Meaning, Spatial Poetics, Semiotics, Existentialism, Carmina Figurata.
Copyright (c) 2016 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Aesthetic Labour and Production Design in Nollywood Cinema: Reconfiguring Mise-en-scène across the Film Production Stages
This study questions the aesthetic and production design in Nollywood films as an area of creative work that is disseminated throughout the pre-production, production, and post-production processes, as opposed to being an aesthetic added to an existing script. It claims that the visual regimes of Nollywood, such as sets, locations, costumes, props, colour, and soundscapes, are a complicated system of signification, formed by limited infrastructures, transnational genre demands, and local moral imaginaries. The article, based on the film-theory of style, semiotics of cinema, and media-infrastructural accounts of Nigerian screen culture, suggests a multi-staged approach to studying production design in terms of making historical judgments between economy, technology, and ideology. The research synthesises the close reading of a representative sample of neo-Nollywood films with a synthetic overview of the current scholarship on mise-en-scène, the formation of the Nollywood genre, and screen aesthetics of Africa. The analysis shows that the pre-production procedures, specifically the location choice, art direction, and costume design, encode the aspects of class, religiosity, and gendered aspiration in a manner that predicts the subsequent cinematographic and editing choices. In principal photography, the low-budget zone strategies of space, blocking, and camera positions reorganise classical norms of continuity into a pattern of hybrid appearance, and post-production colour grading and sound design are retroactively stabilising, or sometimes conflicting with, previous aesthetic indicators. The article argues that the perceived weak points of Nollywood style can be seen more as adaptive aesthetic reasoning that appeared as a result of certain infrastructural circumstances. It makes the conclusion that the production design in Nollywood is at the centre of the visual imagining of African urban modernity, spirituality, and precarious neoliberal subjectivities, and that a more granular analysis of African film production practices ought to be done through the stage.
Copyright (c) 2026 Dr. Badeji Adebayo John, Stella Motunrayo Omotunwase https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
MELODY OF WOUNDS- Saga of A Wounded Civilization
This paper critically examines Melody of Wounds, the maiden poetic collection of Nar Deo Sharma, highlighting his role as a socially committed poet, translator, and critic. Through a blend of satire, vivid imagery, and emotive expression, Sharma exposes deep-rooted social, political, and moral crises such as corruption, hypocrisy, ritualistic hollowness, gender discrimination, and the erosion of human values. His poems interrogate institutions like law, politics, religion, and marriage, revealing their inherent contradictions and injustices. By portraying the suffering of marginalized individuals—women, soldiers, and the poor—he foregrounds the harsh realities of contemporary Indian society. At the same time, Sharma’s poetry retains a note of hope, transforming grief into creative expression and moral awakening. His work stands as a powerful critique of societal degeneration while advocating ethical renewal and human sensitivity, thereby establishing Melody of Wounds as a significant contribution to Indian English poetry.
Nar Deo Sharma, Social Satire, Corruption, Human Values, Indian English Poetry
Copyright (c) 2011 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Mortality, Elegy, and the Imperishability of the Soul: Death, Memory, and Transcendence in the Poetry of Hari Singh Gour
In this paper, a close reading of five poems by Hari Singh Gour will be undertaken on a sustained basis (Random Rhymes, 1892; 2024 Anuugya edition, ed. Laxmi Pandey) which form the most intensive part of the collection in the form of mortality, grief, elegy and transcendence: In Memoriam (To My Sister) (p. 65), Death (p. 30), On the Tomb of Tamerlane (pp. 32–33), “Hadrian’s Address to His Soul” (p. 38), and “On the Tomb of Fawcett” (pp. 41). With reference to the tradition of elegy found in classical antiquity in both the English Romantics and the Victorians, on neo-Platonic philosophy of soul and immortality, and on Indian conceptions of the persistence of the ātman after physical death, the paper claims that the death poetry of Gour represents a strict and emotionally direct meditation upon the question of what remains. The paper places the elegiac poetics of Gour and the poetry of Tennyson, Keats, Shelley and Matthew Arnold and pays due attention to the distinctly Indian aspect of his philosophical and aesthetic legacy. It contends that the most striking feature of the elegiac vision of Gour is that it never accepts the finality of death: in each of the five poems, death is not an end but a change, the transformation of the body into earth, of the individual soul into something that brings to life the natural world, of human greatness into something that lives or, more educatively, does not. The paper concludes that the death poetry of Gour is worthy of appreciation as a pioneer work in the genre of Indian English elegy.
Hari Singh Gour, Indian English poetry, elegy, mortality, neo-Platonism, Victorian poetry, ātman, Random Rhymes, colonial literature, transcendence
The term love appears in almost every poem of W. H. Auden; however, it should not be understood as an intense personal emotion that unites a lover with his or her beloved. Unlike his predecessors, Auden conceives love as something impersonal and detached. His conception of love evolves gradually through three major phases: love as Eros under Freudianism, love as social bonding under Marxism, and love as Agape under Christian existentialism. Beginning with Eros (sexual love), moving through Marxist collectivism, and culminating in Agape (divine love), Auden presents love as a multifaceted and evolving principle. He redefines love not as mere romantic sentiment but as a profound ethical and spiritual force.
Eros, Agape, Freudianism, Marxism, Christian existentialism, spiritual, impersonal.
Niranjan Mohanty- As Critic of Indian English Literature
This paper examines the critical contributions of Niranjan Mohanty to Indian English literary criticism, highlighting his role in shaping a culturally rooted and humanistic discourse. Building upon the early recognition of his potential by Bijay Kumar Das, the study traces Mohanty’s evolution as a critic who engaged deeply with major issues of Indian English poetry and literature. His emphasis on the nativization of English, the experience–expression dichotomy, and the significance of cultural memory underscores his commitment to authenticity in creative writing. Mohanty advocates a synthesis of Indian and Western critical frameworks, encouraging the development of indigenous interpretative tools. He also addresses challenges in English studies, including declining standards, lack of critical engagement with emerging writers, and the marginalization of humanities. Ultimately, his criticism foregrounds the “human factor” as essential for achieving universality, thereby establishing his enduring legacy in Indian English literary thought.
Niranjan Mohanty, Indian English Criticism, Nativization of English, Cultural Memory, Humanism in Literature
Copyright (c) 2013 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
A Note on Poetic Craftsmanship in the Prefaces of Stephen Gill
This paper critically examines the poetic theory and craftsmanship articulated in the prefaces of Stephen Gill, a globally recognized poet, novelist, and critic whose works foreground harmony, human values, and spiritual resilience. Focusing on key texts such as Songs Before Shrine, Shrine (Revised Edition), Flashes, and The Flame, the study explores Gill’s conceptualization of poetry as an experiential, intellectual, and aesthetic practice that bridges inner consciousness with external reality. The paper highlights three central concerns in Gill’s poetics: the definition and function of poetry, the essential qualities of ideal poetic expression, and the limitations inherent in poetic composition. Gill posits poetry as a medium of profound human experience, shaped by a dynamic interplay of inspiration and sustained intellectual labour, wherein “perspiration” outweighs mere spontaneity. His emphasis on beauty, precision of language, economy of expression, and freshness of imagery underscores a disciplined approach to poetic creation. At the same time, he critiques contemporary poetic practices for their reliance on clichés, lack of structural coherence, and insufficient revision. The study further situates Gill’s ideas within broader critical traditions, drawing parallels with figures like John Dryden and T. S. Eliot, who also articulated literary principles through prefaces and essays. Ultimately, the paper argues that Gill’s prefaces function as a significant theoretical corpus that not only reflects his own creative philosophy but also contributes to a larger discourse on poetic art, ethics, and craftsmanship. His vision of poetry as a vehicle of peace, catharsis, and spiritual liberation reinforces its enduring relevance in a fractured modern world.
Stephen Gill, Poetic Craftsmanship, Prefatory Criticism, Inspiration and Perspiration, Aesthetic Theory
Nature, Season, and the Romantic Sublime in Hari Singh Gour’s Poetic Landscape
In this paper, the nature verse of the book Random Rhymes by Hari Singh Gour (1892; rpt. 2024) will be analyzed, emphasizing how eight poems — by the Cam, a memory of a May-week, twilight, winter, a memory of a winter evening, echoes through the woods, a night scene, and spring time — mediate between the conventions received by the British Romanticism and the demands of the uniqueness of a colonial subject in its positionality. With references to the theoretical perspectives of ecocriticism, postcolonial literature studies, and Romantic scholarship, the paper holds that Gour does not merely imitate the Wordsworthian-Keatsian tradition but is not completely outside of it. Rather he operates within that tradition to document modes of alienation, desire, and introspection which cannot be exactly analogized in canonical Romantic verse. The discussion is conducted using a close reading, placing each poem into its intellectual and biographical background, and relying on the works of Abrams (1971), Bate (1991), Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin (1989), and so on. It concludes by suggesting that the landscape poetry of Gour is a small yet truly separate addition to the later nineteenth century long dialogue between British Romanticism and colonialism experience.
Hari Singh Gour, Romantic nature poetry, sublime, ecocriticism, postcolonial poetics, Cambridge, nineteenth-century Indian writing in English
This paper examines the views of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan on materialism within the broader framework of Indian philosophy. While Indian philosophical traditions are often identified with spiritualism, the study highlights the presence and significance of materialist thought from early texts such as the Vedas to the Carvaka school. Radhakrishnan critically engages with materialism, acknowledging its historical continuity while warning against its dominance over human values. He advocates a balanced synthesis of materialism and spirituality, arguing that both are essential for the holistic development of human consciousness. The paper also explores his critique of religious dogma, superstition, and blind faith, emphasizing his humanistic and rational outlook. By reassessing materialism through Radhakrishnan’s perspective, the study underscores the need to reinterpret Indian philosophy beyond rigid binaries and to recognize its dynamic, pluralistic nature in shaping modern intellectual discourse.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Materialism in Indian Philosophy, Carvaka Philosophy, Spirituality and Humanism, Indian Philosophical Tradition.
Copyright (c) 2014 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Namdeo Dhasal: A Radical Voice of Dalit Protest
Namdeo Dhasal's voice of Dalit protest emerged onto the Maharashtrian literary scene in the early 1970s and succeeded in fracturing Marathi literature's tranquility while giving birth to a political movement for Dalit voice. Born in 1949 into the Mahar caste, Dhasal is the only Dalit poet to have received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the country's apex literary institution, the Sahitya Akademi. Though a Mumbai poet whose poetic sensibility emerges from the underbelly of the city — its menacing, unplumbed Netherlands — the vitality and vivacity of his expression is so sublime and exquisite that he deserves to be ranked among the radical voices of protest in India. This paper examines Dhasal's poetry through the lens of Dalit consciousness, tracing his engagement with caste discrimination, urban poverty, the politics of Dalit Panther, and his abiding reverence for Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.
Namdeo Dhasal, Dalit Panther, protest poetry, Golpitha, Kamatipura, Ambedkar, Dalit consciousness, Marathi literature.
Mizo Poetry: A Voice Rising from the Margins
This paper explores the evolution and distinctive features of Mizo poetry, tracing its roots from oral folk traditions to its contemporary expressions in English. It highlights the significant role of missionaries in the development of the Mizo script and literature, while also acknowledging the deep cultural and historical foundations of the Mizo people. The study examines key thematic concerns such as Christian faith, nature, love, social realities, and cultural identity that shape Mizo poetic expression. Through an analysis of selected poets and poems, the paper underscores the simplicity, lucidity, and emotional depth that characterize Mizo poetry. It also draws attention to the marginal position of Mizo poetry within Indian English literature and calls for greater scholarly engagement to recognize and promote this rich yet underrepresented literary tradition
Mizo poetry, oral tradition, nature, Christian faith, marginal literature
Death beyond the Borders of Despondency in the Poetry of D. C. Chambial and Mahendra Bhatnagar
This paper examines the optimistic vision of death in the poetry of D. C. Chambial and Mahendra Bhatnagar, situating their perspectives within the broader framework of Indian philosophical and literary traditions. Contrary to the Western notion of death as a terminal biological event, both poets perceive it as a transformative and liberating force. Drawing upon Vedic thought, mysticism, and cultural beliefs, their poetry redefines death as a passage to spiritual fulfillment and emancipation from worldly suffering. Chambial presents death as a “friendly guest” leading to a “beautiful beyond,” while Bhatnagar views it as a source of meaning, gratitude, and existential completion. Through symbolic imagery and philosophical reflections, both poets dismantle the fear associated with death and elevate it to a realm of serenity and transcendence. Ultimately, their works shift the discourse from despair to acceptance, presenting death as an integral and affirmative dimension of human existence.
Death, Optimism, Indian Philosophy, D. C. Chambial, Mahendra Bhatnagar
Rethinking the Past: The Underground Railroad and Beloved as Neo-slave Narratives of Escape, Memory, and Haunting
This paper interrogates how the theme of escape, haunting, and the long-term impact of traumatic memory redefine historical memory in The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead and Beloved by Toni Morrison. Through the use of speculative features, Whitehead’s real underground railroad and Morrison’s depiction of the ghostly haunting in the Black people’s lives in America, both books undermine the conventional representations of slavery and the weight of the past, both historical and psychological. The characters in these novels mirror the struggle of physical escape and the inescapable impact of painful memory and how the trauma of the past still lingers with them in the generations of their descendants. By combining realism with speculative aesthetics, Whitehead and Morrison focus on the spectral influence of the past in the construction of identity, and social memory by reversing the direction of historical narratives. Grounded in trauma theory and Afro-pessimist thought, the paper challenges the readers to reconsider the way the legacy of slavery continues to plague even the contemporary society, inviting them to evaluate these two novels not only as an act of historical reappropriation but also a critique of the shortcomings of the traditional historiography.
Copyright (c) 2026 Partha Sarathi Mondal https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Super-Realism in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf-Hall Trilogy
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-style-textoutline-type: none; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dpiwidth: .75pt; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-linecap: round; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-join: bevel; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-pctmiterlimit: 0%; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dash: solid; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-align: center; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-compound: simple; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HI;">The term ‘Super-realism’, coined by a British American visual artist, a painter named, Malcolm-Morley in 1970s to connote it as photo-realism. This term shows similarity to some extent with the French philosopher, post-structuralism critic, and sociologist, Jean Baudrillard’s term ‘Hyper-reality’. About this he has written that hyper-reality is not about the outcome, but it is about the process, which makes a text hyper-real or super-real. By saying this Baudrillard was more interested in the process of how a particular incident happened, and not in what happened. Polish-french art critic and writer, Guillame Apollinaire, who fathered the term, ‘cubism’ and is fondly called the forefather of the term, ‘surrealism’. He was of the view to breaking the reality into various perspectives to look at. Andre Breton in his, ‘Manifesto of Surrealism’ has discussed the Freudian psychology and working of the sub-conscious and unconscious mind to narrate a story in such a way that creates super-realism, a kind of realism which was created by Tolstoy in his ‘Crime and Punishment’. This is the point where dreams and reality lose their boundaries and they both coalesce to form super-realism. The present Paper seeks to analyze the Elements of Super-Realism in the Wolf-Hall Trilogy, written by celebrated author Hilary mantel who has been awarded Booker Prize twice for the first two novels of this trilogy. The Wolf-Hall Trilogy is a Series of Historical novel. It delves into the time of King Henry VIII. Narration is in third person. Whole Story is described from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell, chief advisor of King Henry.
Super- Realism, History, Hilary Mantel, Thomas Cromwell. Historical fiction
Copyright (c) 2026 Mukesh Kumar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Usurping Nature: An Ecocritical Study of Pankaj Sekhsaria’s The Last Wave (2014)
The paper explores the novel The Last Wave within the context of changing paradigms of man-nature relationships, especially considering large-scale infrastructure development and the resulting climate change in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, as reported. It questions the priorities of governments and raises concerns about the scale and extent of development at the expense of the island's ecological health. The novel critiques the encroachment of urbanisation and tourism, which threaten not only the ecological balance but also the cultural identity of these indigenous groups. It emphasises the challenges of enforcing conservation laws and highlights the inadequacy of policies that fail to balance development with ecological preservation. The novel prompts discussions on development's problematic nature and how it undermines the existence of tribal communities on the island, who have been crucial in maintaining the island's ecological health. It is a poignant exploration of endangered ecology, offering a compelling commentary on the ecological and cultural challenges facing the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Through its vivid descriptions, engaging characters, and evocative storytelling, the novel illustrates the interconnectedness of humans and nature, while also pointing out the consequences of environmental degradation. By examining the novel through an ecocritical lens, this paper stresses the urgency of preserving the fragile ecosystems and cultural heritage of the Andaman Islands. Sekhsaria’s work functions as a call to action, reminding readers of the ethical responsibilities of conservation and the importance of sustainable coexistence.
Ecocriticism, Neocolonialism, ecology, eco-ethics
Copyright (c) 2026 Sumedha Bhandari https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
<span style="font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-style-textoutline-type: none; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dpiwidth: .75pt; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-linecap: round; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-join: bevel; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-pctmiterlimit: 0%; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dash: solid; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-align: center; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-compound: simple;">This paper applies Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s foundational essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988) to the documentary archive surrounding the massacre of British officers at Mahua Dabar, Gorakhpur district, in June 1857, and the subsequent British punitive destruction of the village. Drawing on the primary source compilation assembled by David Bradbury (Missed History, 2020) which incorporates colonial administrative correspondence, newspaper accounts, military reports, and gazetteer entries from 1857 to 1907 - the paper argues that the Muslim weavers and small traders of Mahua Dabar are doubly silenced: first by the massacre and the burning of their village, and then, more pervasively, by the exclusively British documentary record which renders them as a collectivity defined solely by the act attributed to them. The paper further extends Spivak’s analysis to examine how even those indigenous figures who actively aided British survival -the unnamed Brahmin who sheltered Sergeant Busher, the village jemadar who guided the fugitives across the Gogra, the loyal sepoy Teg Ali Khan - are rendered as functionaries serving British narrative rather than as subjects possessed of interiority, motivation, or independent social existence. The paper also addresses the second, cartographic dimension of silencing: the systematic omission of the name ‘Mahua Dabar’ from Survey of India maps after 1857, a bureaucratic erasure which continued to distort census mapping into the twenty-first century. Finally, the paper evaluates the limits of twenty-first century counter-memory attempts - journalistic, academic, and communal - arguing that these efforts, while recovering the existence of subaltern suffering, are unable to restore subaltern voice and frequently replace colonial narrative with a nationalist or communalist counter-narrative that reproduces the same fundamental epistemological problem.
Copyright (c) 2026 Shaleen Singh https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Linguistic Effacement and Women’s Translational Agency in Arunachal Pradesh during the COVID-19 Lockdown: Reading Mamang Dai’s The Inheritance of Words
With the rise of missionary, Hindi and English medium schools in Arunachal Pradesh, there is an everyday effacement of local language and literature. The familiar vernacular has slowly become defamiliar to the local people and this demands the need for translation. This is a very practical problem as expressed by Mamang Dai in her literary endevours. Covid lockdown brought the intellectuals of the state together to write down their literature which is continually getting lost. In this paper, I have discussed the role of women writers and their contribution towards the development and revival of tribal folklore of Arunachal Pradesh. Their work adds to the corpus of literature of North East and English literature on the whole. Mamang Dai in her edited book 'The Inheritance of Words' (2021) discusses the writings of different writers and their uniqueness lies in the fact that they look at the tribal life of their regionthrough their lived experience and the special outlook and knowledge they have inherited from their mothers and grandmothers. Most of these writers have taken the recourse of English as their language of expression but their ethos can be placed in their mother tongue which is specific to their tribe.
everyday effacement of language, Arunachal Pradesh, women writers, folklore of North East, literature of North East
Copyright (c) 2026 Amrita Bhattacharyya https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Shifting Landscape of Indigenous Knowledge of Play: How Games Influence Children's Subjectivity and Cultural Transmission in Duggar/Jammu
This study investigates children’s subjectivity through the lens of Cultural Studies, focusing on the traditional and contemporary games of the Duggar region. It digitally archives various indigenous games from Duggar in English and situates them within the broader framework of the Indigenous Knowledge System. By examining these games as cultural texts, the research explores how children’s subjectivities are shaped through play and highlights the diverse physical, cognitive, and social skills cultivated through traditional Duggar games. To analyse the transformation of this process in the digital age, the study employs the Cultural Constructivist perspective alongside the Frankfurt School’s framework to interrogate online games as ideological sites where capitalist logics reconfigure the meaning and purpose of play. Within this commodified landscape, children’s subjectivity is no longer shaped through collective folklife, but rather it is structured by the cultivation of consumer desire. The discourse of games thus becomes a powerful apparatus of interpellation, through which children are positioned as consumers from early childhood, internalising market-driven values that infiltrate their consciousness and everyday practices. As a result, the Indigenous knowledge once actively transmitted through play now survives largely as nostalgic memory; a trace of a richer, collective past overshadowed by the forces of commodification.
Indigenous knowledge, Consumerism, Traditional games, online games, Duggar, Jammu
Copyright (c) 2026 Komal Bharti, Neena Gupta Vij https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Behind Bars: The Unheard Voices of Women Prisoners in Apradhini
The life of a prisoner is a complex and multidimensional experience marked by confinement, isolation, and profound psychological and social consequences. Shivani’s Apradhini: Women without Men, a collection of seventeen stories depicting women living in prison in the absence of male presence, offers a powerful lens through which to examine the lived realities of women prisoners. This paper explores the personal, familial, and social circumstances that lead to women’s incarceration, foregrounding the pain, suffering, and emotional turmoil they endure both within and beyond prison walls. By engaging closely with these narratives, the study provides a deeper understanding of the structural and emotional complexities shaping their lives. The primary objective of this paper is to give voice to the marginalized and often unheard experiences of women prisoners as represented in Apradhini. The study is significant in drawing attention to the gendered nature of punishment and incarceration, while also highlighting the need for psychological, social, and institutional support for the rehabilitation and reintegration of women into society. Analyzing Apradhini through the theoretical frameworks of feminist criticism, existential alienation, and gender studies, the paper demonstrates that women’s suffering is not merely individual but deeply embedded within patriarchal structures that define, confine, and marginalize them.
Alienation, Confinement, Incarceration, Rehabilitate, Reintegrate.
Copyright (c) 2026 Megha Pant https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Framing the Margins: Caste, Gender, and Nationhood in Reformist-Era Indian Films (1930–60s)
The Reformist Era of Indian cinema, spanning between 1930s and 1960s, was closely associated with India’s colonial resistance, movements toward freedom, independence, and the formative challenges of democratic governance. While films from this era have been recognized and acclaimed for their social awareness and critiques the traditional hierarchies, this paper argues that they also simultaneously marginalized the voices of the most oppressed groups—particularly Dalit women—by systematically neglecting their lived experiences and confined them to merely symbolic or subordinate roles. The present paper critically studies and analyses how the cinematic narratives from this era constructed an idealized portrayal of the Indian nation that effectively concealed the oppression related to caste and gender.
Indian cinema, Dalit women, Representation, National Imaginary, Gender.
Copyright (c) 2026 Parmod Mehra https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Green Imagination: Reading Earth and Ecology in select Awadhi Folk Lyrics
In the present era of globalization and cultural homogenization, there is an increasing interest in regional and local traditions in academia. A good amount of research done in the field of literature at present focuses on the marginal and the local traditions, tropes, songs and the literature lost under the colonial whitewashing and centralization of the English language. Awadhi folk imagination envisions the earth as a living and nurturing divine presence. The paper aims at exploring the ecological consciousness embedded in Awadhi folk songs. They are rooted in an intrinsic harmony between human existence and ecology, where land, trees and rivers emerge as living participants in everyday life. The paper foregrounds how folk lyrics, particularly Samskara lyrics, seasonal lyrics, vrata lyrics and labour lyrics, convey human emotions of joy, separation, care, and continuity through natural imagery. The paper traces how animistic and naturalistic beliefs shape folk imagination, positioning nature as the creator, preserver, and an omnipresent guardian. A close reading of Awadhi folk lyrics through the lens of ecology, testifies that these songs retain a motivating force and remain closely aligned with the folk spirit, despite their differing themes and occasions.
Copyright (c) 2026 R P Singh, Mallika Shukla https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Rhetoric Of Gaze : A Critical Study Of Hitchcock's Rear Window
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-style-textoutline-type: none; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dpiwidth: .75pt; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-linecap: round; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-join: bevel; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-pctmiterlimit: 0%; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dash: solid; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-align: center; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-compound: simple; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HI;">This paper endeavours to critically engage with and examine the gazes cast by the photojournalist protagonist Mr. L. B. Jefferies (James Stewart) in Alfred Hitchcock's iconic film Rear Window (1954). It attempts to analyze how Jefferies observes his neighbours' behaviours through the views offered by binocular and zoom lens. Acting like a Peeping Tom, he takes the voyeuristic pleasure of these male gazes. The purpose of the paper is to analyse voyeurism and its role in developing the plot of the movie . The paper situates Hitchock's Rear window within the theoretical framework of Laura Mulvey's influential essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". It primarily explores the concept of 'scopophilia', pleasure derived from looking, as a crucial subject of cinematic spectatorship. This paper attempts to critically examine how, In this patriarchal society, women are turned into objects of gaze(s) rather than the possessors because of the controlling presence of camera coming from the assumptions of heterosexual men. John Berger, in his "Selected Essays", argues " you painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own purpose." (507) The plot of the movie , actually, centres round gazing, looking, and watching. The protagonist L. B. Jefferies is in the ethical dilemma of surveillance. Dilemmas, ethical concerns, and the practice of surveillance, therefore, have also been placed under the lens of scrutiny.The paper focuses on the justification of the practice of surveillance, eliciting the idea whether Hitchcock's treatment is sophisticated or not.
male gaze, voyeuristic pleasure, Peeping Tom, surveillance
Copyright (c) 2026 Md Naimuddin Molla https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0