Sunday reading:Bonfire (Holika Dahan)

 

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Holi is always celebrated in the month of Phalgun, according to the Hindu calendar and marks the end of the winter season. The festival of colours will be celebrated on Monday, March 29, while Holika Dahan will be observed a day before that is on Sunday, March 28. Holika Dahan is an auspicious day that is celebrated just a night before Holi.

The victory of good over evil is celebrated on the eve of Holika Dahan. People light the bonfire on this day and commemorate the triumph of Bhakt Prahlad’s faith in Lord Vishnu over the evil intentions of his father Hiranyakashipu and his aunt, Holika. As per the beliefs, his father and aunt attempted to kill him by setting him on fire, but his faith in Lord Vishnu protected him. It is also believed that by lighting the bonfire, negativity will go away from one’s life.

Bhadra Kaal on Holika Dahan: The Bhadra Punchha is between 10:13 am and 11:16 am while the Bhadra Mukha is from 11:16 am to 01:00 pm. As per the Hindu calendar, Holika Dahan must not be performed during the Bhadra Mukha period.

It is said that choosing the right Muhurta for Holika Dahan is more important than choosing the right Muhurta for any other festivals as if the rituals of Holika Dahan will be performed at the wrong time, then it can bring suffering and misfortune.

COVID-19 Rules and Restrictions

Following the surge in cases, the Gujarat government announced on 21 March that colours will not be allowed this Holi. This year, the Holi celebration will be limited to the holy pyre of ‘Holika Dahan’.

In Bihar, public Holi celebrations have been banned entirely. Moreover, travellers coming into the state will be randomly tested for coronavirus at railway stations, bus stands, and airports.

People in the state of Odisha also will not be able to celebrate the festival of colours in public places. ‘Dola Melans’ may be allowed with an appropriate number of participants, while the ‘Dolayatra’ shall not be allowed at all in public. The local authorities may also impose restrictions on the entry of devotees into temples and religious places.

The hotspot city of Mumbai and Palghar in Maharashtra have also banned both, private and public celebrations of Holika Dahan as well as Rangpanchami.

In Punjab, Chandigarh’s local government has declared that neither public Holi-Milan festivities, nor ceremonial gatherings in clubs, hotels, or restaurants will be permitted.

The authorities of Uttar Pradesh, too, issued a circular stating that no Holi-special procession will be carried out without prior permission of the government.

At the capital city, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) has ordered a ban on public celebrations of not only Holi, but Navratri and other festivals as well.

The daily caseload in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, West Bengal, Telangana, and several other states has been increasing at an alarming rate in the past 30 days, and state governments are expected to soon release their guidelines for the festival.

Holika Dahan, also Kamudu pyre, is celebrated by burning Holika, an asura. For many traditions in Hinduism, Holi celebrates the killing of Holika in order to save Prahlad, a devotee of God Vishnu and thus Holi gets its name. In olden days, people used to contribute a piece of wood or two for the Holika bonfire, and this represents Holika being consumed by the fire in which she tried to kill her nephew Prahlad. A similar holiday is Holi where people get to gather and often repair broken relationships.

    Reason for Holika dahan:-    Edit

The burning of Holika is the most common historical explanation for the celebration of Holi. In different parts of India varying reasons are given for Holika's death. Among those are:

Lord Vishnu stepped in and hence Holika burnt.

Holika was given the power by the Brahma on the understanding that it can never be used to bring harm to anyone.

Holi! The vibrant festival of colors sees friends and families zealously throwing fists of vibrant coloured powders and squirting water through pichkaris at each other. Though the atmosphere of fun and frivolity remains the same everywhere, each state has its own special traditions associated with Holi.

Here are unique places to make your 2021 Holi unforgettable on 28 and 29 March!

Hampi – A South Indian Holi

Hampi Holi

South India is generally known for peaceful and tranquil holi celebrations, but one must count Hampi out. This ancient town is popular amongst backpackers from all over the world, and come Holi, people of all colours join the locals in the joyful celebrations. While you are there, roam around its beautiful temples and take in all the history of the place, because if there’s one thing here more fascinating than the festival itself, it’s all the age-old tales and fables.

Delhi – A Bollywood Holi

Bollywood Style Holi

The capital of India is sprayed with every shade of every colour, as young and old alike drench themselves (quite literally) in the gaiety of the festival. Delhiites usually start with a tilak- a small mark on the forehead considered to be a good omen- and before you know, they are covered with Gulaal from head to toe. True to the city’s party-culture, there are several parties arranged across Delhi, from premium bashes offering gourmet food and alcohol, to budget-friendly, no-frills options. Bollywood party music resonates from every corner of the city, so get ready to sway to your fave go-to moves.

Shantiniketan – A Cultural Holi

Holi Milan

If you’re looking forward to cherishing the true essence of the festival, Shantiniketan is the place to be. This university town steps away from the clichéd customs of Basanta Utsav (Holi) and takes a more cultural spin of the festival. Students, clad in bright yellow clothes, showcase their talents through ethnic dance and entertainment performances. You can even meet the artsy community of the area and get insights into the Bengali culture.

The baul singers singing on the tune of their unique ‘Ektara’ instruments are a treat for your years, and even though you don’t understand the language, the music will stay with you forever.

Udaipur – A Royal Holi

Udaipur Holi

Whatever the City of Lake does, it does with a touch of grandeur and Holi is no exception. On the first day, the Holika Dahan ceremony is graced by by the royal family and the King lights the holy pyre while the local artists dressed vibrantly in Rajasthani traditional attire sing and dance around the bonfire. A stately procession, complete with ornated camels, elephants and horses, then starts from the Shambhu Niwas Palace and moves up to Manek Chowk royal residence. The Maharaja of Mewar personally welcomes honorable guests, foreign tourists, and many dignitaries to the Royal City Palace.

Mathura – The Ultimate Holi

Mathura Holi

The birthplace of Lord Krishna is the undisputed king of the Holi celebration in India. The historic city becomes a riot of colours during the festival, coming alive with infectious energy and fervour. Women playfully fend the harmless flirtations of men with sticks, depicting the innocent relations between Krishna and Radha. Priests shower blessed water on devotees visiting the temples during these days. Barsana, Vrindavan and Nandgaon are the nexus of Mathura’s festivities. Here, you’ll also get to sample some of the best Bhang, a traditional milk-based drink flavoured with cannabis leaves.

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Sahitya Akademi Awardee Poet Arundhati Subramaniam: Where God is a Traveller

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This task is related to Sahitya Akademi Awardee Poet Arundhati Subramaniam.

Arundhathi Subramaniam is an Indian poet, writer, critic, curator, translator, Journalist, writing in English.

Poet Arundhathi Subramaniam among 20 winners of 2020 Sahitya Akademi Awardn

Subramaniam won the award for her poetry collection ‘When God is a Traveller’ in English.

Poet Arundhathi Subramaniam is among the 20 writers to receive the Sahitya Akademi Award for 2020, reported PTI. The National Academy of Letters announced the names on Friday at its annual ‘’Festival of Letters’’ event.

Subramaniam won the award for her poetry collection When God is a Traveller in English.

The 2020 winners’ list includes seven books of poetry, four novels, five short stories, two plays, and one each of memoirs and epic poetry in 20 Indian languages. The awards for Malayalam, Nepali, Odia and Rajasthani will be announced later, said the Akademi.

Apart from Subramaniam, the others who received the award in poetry include Harish Meenakshi (Gujarati), Anamika (Hindi), RS Bhaskar (Konkani), Irungbam Deven (Manipuri), Rupchand Hansda (Santali), and Nikhileswar (Telugu).

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Congress leader M Veerappa Moily also received the award for his epic poem Sri Bahubali Ahimsadigvijayam in Kannada.

Other winners included novelists Nanda Khare (Marathi), Maheshchandra Sharma Gautam (Sanskrit), Imaiyam (Tamil) and Sri Hussain-ul-Haque (Urdu).

The Akademi named Apurba Kumar Saikia (Assamese), Dharanidhar Owari (Bodo), Hiday Koul Bharti (Kashmiri), Kamalkant Jha (Maithili) and Gurdev Singh Rupana (Punjab) winners in the short stories section. Gian Singh (Dogri) and Jetho Lalwani (Sindhi) received the award for their plays, while Mani Shankar Mukhopadhyay (Bengali) got it for his memoir.

“The books were selected on the basis of recommendations made by a jury of three members in the concerned languages in accordance with the procedure laid down for the purpose,” said the Akademi. The award includes an engraved copper plaque, a shawl and an amount of Rs 1 lakh. It will be presented at a function later.

Awards

Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry: On 25 January 2015, Arundhathi won the first Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry for her work When God is a Traveller. The prize was announced as part of ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival.[10]

Mystic Kalinga Literary Award: On 22 December 2017, Arundhathi won the first Mystic Kalinga Literary Award for her work in English Literature. The prize was announced as part of Mystic Kalinga - An International Festival of Mythology, poetry and performance, Kalinga Literary Festival.[11]

2020 - Sahitya Akademi Award for English - When God is a Traveller (poetry)

When God Is A Traveller

Arundhathi Subramaniam - Poetry - 2020 - 112 pages

Arundhathi Subramaniam's poems explore ambivalences - the desire for adventure and anchorage, expansion and containment, vulnerability and strength, freedom and belonging, withdrawal and engagement, language as exciting resource and as desperate refuge. These are poems of wonder and precarious elation, and all the roadblocks and rewards on the long dangerous route to recovering what it is to be alive and human. Winner of the inaugural Khushwant Singh Poetry Prize and shortlisted for the 2014 T.S. Eliot Prize, When God Is a Traveller is a remarkable book of poetry.

Arundhathi Subramaniam is the award-winning author of twelve books of poetry and prose,

including the recent poetry volume, Love Without a Story, the acclaimed sacred poetry anthology, Eating God and the bestselling biography of a mystic, Sadhguru: More Than a Life. A well-known prose writer on Indian spirituality, she has been a long-standing arts critic, anthologist, performing arts curator and poetry editor. 

She is the recipient of various awards and fellowships, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, the  inaugural Khushwant Singh Prize, the Raza Award for Poetry, the Zee Women’s Award for Literature, the International Piero Bigongiari Prize in Italy, the Mystic Kalinga award, the Charles Wallace, Visiting Arts and Homi Bhabha Fellowships, among others. She has written extensively on culture and spirituality, and has worked over the years as poetry editor, cultural curator and critic. 

She has worked as Head of Dance and Chauraha (an inter-arts forum) at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai, and has been Editor of the India domain of the Poetry International Web.

Thinking activity:- The White Tiger 🐅

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Welcome to my blog,

   This task is related to 'The White Tiger'🐅 by Aravind Adiga.

Abstract:-

The White Tiger is the debut novel of Aravind Adiga, which brought him Man Booker Prize in 2008. Although Indian economy has grown steadily over the last two decades, its growth has been uneven when comparing different social groups, economic groups, geographic regions, rural and urban areas. The novel studies the contrast between India’s rise as a modern global economy and the lead character, Balram's, Who comes from crushing rural poverty. It is told in the form of a series of letters from an entrepreneur living in Bangalore named Balram Halwai to Wen Javano, the premier of China. The story moves from a boy who broke coal in a tea shop to a driver and servant to a wealthy family, and then to a self-made “entrepreneur”.

Key words: global economy, rural poverty, uneven social groups.

1. How far do you agree with the Indian represented in the novel the white Tiger?

The novel studies the contrast between India’s rise as a modern global economy and the lead character, Balram's, Who comes from crushing rural poverty. 

“At a time when India is going through great changes and, with China, is likely to inherit the world from the West, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal in justice of society(Indian). That’s what I’m trying to do-it is not an attack on the country, it’s the greater process of self-examination” (“Review: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga”, The Telegraph).

The White Tiger is presented as an epistolary novel, a series of letters written over the period of seven nights. It is an interesting ploy used by the author to keep the readers glued to the novel. Balram's is writing to the premier of china, Wen Jiabao, Due to visit the city of Bangalore, Balram is living in, in a week’s time. Balram does have something to get off his chest, of course, and his letters to the Chinese premier are a confession of sorts. Balram tells his life-story, recounting how he got to where he now is successful entrepreneur in Bangalore. From very beginning we learnt that he is a wanted man, as he writes about a poster describing him and alluding to his misdeeds. And soon he reveals what crime he has on his hands, too.

Aravind Adiga in an interview with the BBC said;

“The White Tiger is the story of a poor man in today’s India, one of the many hundreds of millions who belong to the vast Indian under class; people who live as labourers, as servants, as chauffeurs and who by and large do not get represented in Indian entertainment, in Indian films, in Indian books. My hero-or rather my Protagonist-Balram Halwai is one of these faceless millions of poor Indians”

Social groups involve two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics and collectively have a sense of unity or objective similarity. In the case of Aravind Adiga’s ‘The White Tiger,’ the vast numbers of different social groups are represented in several different ways. Drivers in India are an example of a social group mentioned throughout the novel. Adiga’s interpretation of each driver or group of drivers in the novel are viewed through the eyes of Balram Halwai, the main character of the novel, who goes from living on the streets, to becoming a driver, to developing into an entrepreneur of his own driving company.

Apart from that he satires on the the Indian systems major like 

• Indian Education system
• Indian Marriage system
• Way of becomes Successful entrepreneur 
• Way of doing the Business
• Bosom
• Servitude nature of Humans
• Indian Police system 
• Joint family living system   

                                                                                                      Almost every field or aspects of Indian peoples and their way of living life is covered by Adiga in this novel.

2. Do you believe that Balram's story is the archetype of all stories of 'rags to riches' ?

This story is told by the central character Balram Halwai who moves from rags to riches. Rags to rich means a journey of becoming poor to rich. In the movie Slumdog Millionaire the protagonist jamal malik's story and Adiga's The white tiger are both similar in the same narrative about the journey of becoming rags to rich.  Balram was a middle class Halwai son who wrote letters on becoming a famous entrepreneur. Though he would become successful because of murdering of his master and stalled his name and money. 

3) 'Language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique, deconstructive criticism aims to show that any text inevitably undermines its own claims to have a determinate meaning, and licences the reader to produce his own meaning out of it by an activity of semantic 'freeplay' Is it possible to do deconstructive reading of The white Tiger ? How?

To deconstruct the text or writers own writing is one of the prominent key features of postmodern novels. Adiga and Julian Barnes' way of narrating the things at some level is similar. For example, the first character narrates the story and the letter on by him / her self deconstructs the narrative. Like in Adiga's the white tiger,  

 As the novel begins, in the first sense Balram talks about Mr. Jiabao. He says that,

         “Neither you nor I can speak English but there are some things that can be said only in English”.

It means that Adiga knows about the use of language in a better way.

       This novel we also deconstructed on the basis of class conflict. Balram is a servant and also driver of Honda city car. In India servants are always faithful to his master, like Hanuman. So here this idea of a loyal or faithful servant of his master was deconstructed very artfully.

4.  With ref to screening of the Netflix adaptation: 

•   1) Write review of the film adaptation of The White Tiger

• 2)Have you identified any difference in the novel and the adaptation? Does it mark any significant difference in the overall tone and texture of the novel?

• 3) David Ehrlich in his review wrote this- Ramin Bahrain's Netflix Thriller is a Brutal corrective to 'Slumdog Millionaire' why is it a 'corrective' ? What was the error in Slumdog Millionaire that it was corrected?

‘The White Tiger’ Trailer: An Indian Servant Won’t Wait for a ‘Slumdog Millionaire’

The main character of “The White Tiger,” a poor, Indian servant who rises to become a powerful entrepreneur, says there’s no “Slumdog Millionaire”-type game show that’s going to break him out of his poverty. The only thing he can do is seize his opportunity.

That’s the set up for Ramin Bahrani’s new film “The White Tiger,” which is based on the best-selling novel by Aravind Adiga and co-stars Priyanka Chopra-Jonas. Newcomer Adarsh Gourav narrates his own epic story about how he goes from being a driver for a wealthy man played by Rajkummar Rao to finally rebelling against the class system and becoming his own master.

“Here in India, there are only two kinds of people, those with big bellies and those with small bellies,” Gourav’s character says. “I was trapped. I don’t believe for a second there’s a million rupee game show I can win to get out of here.”

The White Tiger” is yet another buzzy awards contender for Netflix arriving this winter that also includes films like “Mank,” “The Midnight Sky,” “Hillbilly Elegy” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” This film is written and directed by “99 Homes” director Bahrani and is executive produced by Ava DuVernay and Chopra-Jonas.

Netflix will debut “The White Tiger” first in theaters in December followed by a launch on the streaming service on January 22.

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