Advanced Writing

                                                              Advanced Writing                                                                                                                                         The  world  is  shrinking  into  a  global  village  with  economic,  political  and  social  linkages. A new shared  sense  of  identity  and  culture  is  on  full  bloom.  Inorder  to  sustain  oneself  in  such a  competitive  world ,  one  must  adopt  a multi  dimensional  approach.  This  idea  is  in  tune  with the  evolutionary  concept  regarding  “the  survival  of  the  fittest”  (Darwin).  To  stay  rooted  in  a       technology  based  and  highly  competitive  world  one  must  excel  in  developing  and   incorporating  different  skills  and  strategies.                                                                                                                                                                   Advanced  writing  is  one  such  essential  skill  that  every  professional  must  attain  in  his  life  for career  advancement  as  in  today’s  world  effective  communication  plays  an  important  role  in scripting  one’s  success. Writing  indeed  is  a  method  of  communicating  one’s ideas  and  thoughts  to  others. In  a  professional  environment,  employees  are  supposed  to  draft  enormous amount  of  business  letters,  reports  and  other  correspondences. This  mode  of  writing  greatly differs  from  literary  style  by  being  more  structural,  formal  and  rules  bound.                                                                                                        Advanced  writing  involves  different   parameters  and   the  art  of  writing  short  and  clear message  is  one  among  them.This  idea  exists  in  parallel  with  the  expression  “brevity  is  the soul  of  wit”  (Shakespeare).  In  professional  communication,  everything  is supposed  to  be  crisp, clear  and  brief . It  is  highly  advisable  to  maintain  the  decorum  of  writing  to  make  the message  more  clear  and  simple. This  would  add  more  clarity  and  convenience  to  the  message delivered.                                                                                                                                                  The  structural  framework  of  an  excellent  write  up  includes  effective  paragraph  division.  The intial  paragraph  must  be  of  introductory  nature  and  it  is  highly  recommendable  to give  a  brief  insight  to  the  reader  regarding  what  they  are bgoing  to  read  or  learn  in  the  successive paragraphs.  The  first  sentence  in  each   paragraph  must  offer   a  new  idea  or  view  point   to the  reader  and  the  subsequent  sentences  must  be  of  explanatory  kind. A  scholarly  appeal  could  be  induced  into  writing  by  using  relevant  quotes.  Such  illustrations  would  lead  to  better  understanding  of  the  text .                                                                                                           One  must  never  forget  to  acknowledge  or  to  give credits  to  the  sources  from  which  they  have  adopted  words  or  ideas. This  would  help  one  to  resist  oneself  from  committing  the  act of  plagiarism.  Avoiding  plagiarism  by  acknowledging  the  sources  would  indeed  enhance  one’s credibility  as  a  writer.  In  today’s  world  such  acknowledgements  are  of  greater  significance.                                                         Academic  writing  is  not  a  simple  process  as  it  revolves  around  various  written  and  unwritten codes  of  rules  and  norms.  By  strictly  adhering  to  essential requirements  of  scholarly  writing  like  brevity,  clarity,  structural  divisions  and  avoidance  of  plagiarism,   one  is  placing  himself  in  a  higher  pedestal  in  this  highly  competitive  zones  of   academic  and  professional environment.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        In Search of Happiness.........                                                                                                                                       A sinking heart aching with the pangs of untold pain.                                                                                                A pair of blue wandering eyes in search of solace in vain.                                                                       A puzzling brain in search of solutions for endless  problems.                                                                            Sets out a journey in search for happiness .....                                                                                                But happiness was no where to be found                                                                                                        Thus the desperate trail in search of exquisite happiness.....                                                                        Continues forever & ever.........                                                                

                           Nature's Daughter

Her happy feet  brushed the Earth with smooth touch.                                                                         Those selfless touches made the young buds  to bloom 

Nature’s musicians were always happy to welcome her 

To awake  earth from her long forgetful sleep

Yes , she was nature’s own daughter, the real one 

Whom the world failed to understand                                                                                                     

As for them she was a mere labourer.

The world was always good in making such fake understandings

So it failed to feel the real devotion of the little girl

Whose service to nature is like a little daughter

Taking care of her ailing mother, Mother Earth!!

B +ve

While looking into the lush thickets

And sipping the nectar of nature

With cool pattings of air on cheeks

And thinking about the nuances of life

There came a shrilled voice

That disrupted my enquiry into greeneries.

With a startled look, I turned my face

To the side from which the voice came.

I saw a figure as dark as a night

With two little twinkling eyes

And a parched face.

The strange lady soon melted out

The coldness of defamiliarization

By her sweet enquiries.

Soon she became a paragon

Of suffering and hope before me

As she untwined her tales

Of unwelcomed miseries and pains.

She asked me to pray for her,

Pray for CANCER patients like her.

My heart was paused for few seconds.

I looked deep into her once again.

Yes she was telling the truth

As I could see few strands of her hair

That stood like an oasis in a desert

When her head scarf slipped away

At the sudden touch of the wind.

I promised her that I will pray.

Few minutes later, I watched

Her descending the steps of bus

With her each confident moves

 She silently proclaimed,

 Always, Be Positive.

.

BLACK DAY

Their hands floated in the air

While bidding good bye to the dear ones

Their lips softly murmured

That soon they will be back

After getting drenched in the drowsy outpour

Of radiant festive galore.

They were moved by the magical chants

Their eyes glittered at sight of their dear deity

They danced to rhythm of drum beats

And get induced by the fierce steps of the oracles.

Finally, at the peak of exhilaration and excitement

There burst thousands of crackers

To ornate the dark ,blue black sky

With many a shining and colourful patterns

But suddenly everything came to standstill

Cries of joy turned into shrilled and numb voices of pain.

The festive charms of the season

Dissolved into the thick layers of black smoke

They cried for help

Scattered into different directions

To find out  an exit door to life

But all their attempts failed.

They failed to keep the promises

Given to their dear ones

Waiting for them in distant lands

As the fate played a cruel game

That sealed their final doom.

Truth of Life

With a loud cry we came to this world

But goes from here even without a silent whisper

We came here as pure as an angel

But goes as a black dare devil

Where have all the purity and innocence gone ??

Are they locked inside some danger boxes

Guarded by some unkind monsters

So that once lost, it’s lost forever

But remember one thing

We came here empty-handed

And returns empty handed

Knowledge about this mere fact

Could bring as back to truth

The truth of being a human being

Magical Memories Reloaded

The cries of jubilation has ended 
with the nightly song of crickets 
pouring their heart out into 
the darkened zones of earth
Few moments past
the world was covered
in the blooming blossoms of love
and every sweet heart 
burning in the magical flames of love 
But the swift passage of time
vanquished the glittered spells of love
and cleared the red rose paths
with the cool and gentle breezes 
that the silent night brings
Even though the silent night has killed
the love and laughter of many hearts
but evergreen memories can never fade away
as they are sealed safe in  inner chambers
of human heart, the seat of everlasting moments

Morning Mysteries Resolved

At the break of dawn
when i opened my eyes
i saw a scene as beautiful as a dream
that opened the inner chambers of my heart 
to capture the visual magic
of an evergreen memory

A scene decked up in the green charms of nature
with the crystal dew drops shining on green leaves
intermixed with the sweet intoxicating rhythm
of nature's morning musicians 
to log out every sleeping beauties
from their long silent sleeps !!

Into the Lonesome Woods

 I walked into the lonesome woods

To have a glimpse of the nature’s treasure trove

Filled with exquisite waterfalls, wild landscapes,

Green meadows and deep dark valleys.

 The soft filtered touch of the sun

Reaching through the green shades of trees

Kindred my spirit with cinders of passion

To explore the unknown realms of nature

Which remains hidden to the eyes of  modern man

Toiled by the mighty buzz of gadgets and technology

Getting weary and weak every time

Longs for a new life,  a fresh pasture

To unravel him from the heavy burdens of modern life

So now it’s time to join the path of true green lovers

Who traverse deep into the abodes of green nature

To  break the complex fetters of life

Entangling them and to a lead a life

As simple and pure as nature

That the travelers to the lonesome woods enjoy.

PEBET

Rustom Bharucha, the trained dramaturg from the Yale School of drama introduces the readers to the theatrical world of Heisnam Kanhailal through his work, The Theatre of Kanhailal: Pebet and Memoirs of Africa.

Heisnam Kanhailal’s contribution to the field of contemporary theatre is immense. He is mainly noted for the establishment of the theatre of Kalakshetra Manipur. With the help of this theatre group he was able to propagate his ideas concerning non-verbal or gestural theatre. As the name indicates, the focus is on stylized gestures, dance, mime, music and song to create productions that communicate at several levels with the “text” of the play being only a part of the whole process. Unlike the traditional playscripts the meaning is conveyed through body, silence, sounds, rhythm and this indeed contributes to the totality of performance.

Heisnam Kanhailal in his performance oriented play Pebet incorporates the cultural issues and conflicts residing in the Manipuri soil so as to establish his Meithei identity. The play derives much of its material from the phunga wari or fireside stories that are told to Manipuri children by their grandmothers. The framework of the play is generated from the simple story of pebet, a small bird that was once visible in Manipuri jungles and now an almost extinct species. This miniscule representation of life is the protagonist of the story.

Pebet is a folktale deeply entrenched in the psyche of the Manipuri people, in which a mother bird fights to protect her children from a predatory cat. Kanhailal politicizes this familiar story, turning it into a struggle against the political and cultural colonization of Manipur by the addition of a fantasy sequence in which the politics of the play is revealed.

Mother Pebet, the protagonist of the play is in charge of her children, the Pebet Children. This family of Pebets represented in the play symbolically stands for the traditional Meitei or meetei cult of Manipur. Meitheism was originally the official practice of the people belonging to both hill and valley of Manipur. The time period witnessed a flourish in both art and literature. The serenity and calmness of the period is indeed reflected in the initial parts of the play. The romantic song sung by the Mother Pebet accompanied by her coy movements towards her invisible lover and the following “Birth cry, bird cry” mentioned in the prologue of the play announces Mother Pebet’s leitmotif to the world.

The birth and development of Pebet children and their learning of how to fly depicted in the play can be seen as an indirect expression concerning the peaceful inhabitance of the Meiteis. But everything changed with the arrival of the deadly cat. The man playing the role of the cat in the play wears a short yellow dhoti and holds a mala of wooden beads in one hand. Thus in the play, the cat is represented like a pseudo-monk that symbolically stands for the Vaishnavite power. Vaishnavism as a movement or religious practice was propagated in Manipur during the ruling period of King Garib Nivas (1709-1748) and Bhagyachandra (1763-1798). The period witnessed wide spread destruction of traditional lai (gods), the burning of ancient manuscripts, the banning of the Meithei script and its replacement by the Bengali script, the introduction of the Hindu calendar and system of gotras, enforcement of Hindu dietary laws, and the sanctification of the first recorded instances in Manipuri history of sati. All these historical events point that the indigenous culture of Manipur faded away with the entry of Vaishnavism. A similar occurrence happens in the Pebet family with the entry of the predatory cat.

At first the Mother Pebet acts submissive to the cat out of her fear concerning the safety of her children. She makes use of the art of flattery to divert the cat’s attention from her children. All her strategies change at the moment when she realizes that her children have become experts in flying. The very moment she starts to throw verbal daggers upon the deadly cat. The cat exits from their life for a short interval with a heart filled with a deep sense of shame and anger. The happiness of Pebets lasted only for a short span of time as it was soon interrupted by the cat. The cat tricked the young Pebet and made him an agent and appointed him with the mission to capture the other Pebet children. The young Pebet was successful in his endeavor and eventually they all became part of the “cat culture,” an idea that the Mother Pebet resented.

Through the anxiety of Mother Pebet regarding the cat-culture, Kanhailal tries to emphasis the importance of Meithei identity. The real politics of the play appears before the spectators through a fantasy sequence. It is this addition of fantasy sequence that alters the play from the original folk tale. The pathetic cry of young Pebet freezes the Mother Pebet and she enters into a dream sequence where all her children are captured by the cat. Soon she witnesses her dear children becoming mere puppets in the hands of the savage cat. All their unity, love and affection for one another merely dwindle and they act according to the wishes of their new master, the brute cat. This disintegration of the Pebet children that occurs in the play symbolically stands for the disintegration of the seven clans that formed the Meithei community with the arrival of Vaishnavite movement from India. This hinduisation process faded the glory of the indigenous culture.

 Kanhailal’s Cat is clearly Vaishnavite in his rhetoric and tactics. The most savage irony of his indoctrination occurs when he brainwashes the Pebet children with the famous words from the Sanskrit sloka, ‘Janani Jammabhumichha Swargadapi Gariyasi.’ The Pebet children enter into mad and cruel fights with each other and they all blindly follow the instructions given by their master. The fight scenes shown in the play are purely based on the rich martial arts tradition of Manipur. The action sequels in the play derive much of the material from the martial arts tradition of Thang-ta and mukna. The cat makes use of many violent and savage methods to torture the Pebet family and all such cruel methods adopted by the cat reveals the sadist nature of the cat. At the command of the cat, the Pebet children pellet stones upon their mother. Here the cat uses his language and strategy to make the Pebets abuse their own mother. The most humiliating episode in the play is that of the Pebet children licking the cat’s arse in a ritualistic manner.

The conversion of Pebet children to the cat culture and their resulting denial of traditional roots clearly match with the condition of modern Manipuri youth. One of the searing images of Imphal is the sight of its rickshawallahs: youths with their faces swathed in cloth, sporting dark glasses and improvised hats, the fashion of an “underground culture.” These young men cover their faces because they don’t want to be seen. They are ashamed of themselves. It is this deep sense of shame about their own identity that makes them prey to the deadly plans of the cat. The Pebet brothers fighting aggressively for the sariks awarded by the cat clearly matches with the real life situations in Manipur.

Every tale of oppression and tyranny is met with strong resistance. This indeed is reflected in the play. Unlike the eldest and youngest Pebet brothers, the middle brother bites the cat’s arse. This act of defiance bears a striking resemblance to the emergence of various movements that aimed at the revival of Meitheism in Manipur. The clarion calls from different layers of Manipuri society for the establishment of an autonomous Meithei state exists as a manifestation of the antagonism against the oppressive domains of power.

The act of resistance put forward by the middle brother makes him subjected to extreme levels of torture. But soon the fantasy sequence breaks and the Pebets move to the exact positions to which they were standing before the starting of the fantasy sequence. Once again the Mother Pebet cries for her child, the young Pebet, who is still under the custody of the cat. The Mother Pebet tricks the cat and saves her child. At last the Pebet family is reunited and the Mother Pebet once again proves that “she is a pillar of strength supported by all her children.”

Thus Kanhailal makes use of the simple folktale and thereby adopts the technique of “subverting the familiar” to deal with the larger cultural and social issues of Manipur.

                                                                                                        SAKSY JOY

                           AMERICAN LITERATURE

The written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies came to be known as American literature. During its early history, America was a series of British colonies on the eastern   coast of the present day United States. Therefore its literary tradition holds a strong umbilical chord to the broader tradition of English literature. Later American literature reshaped its literature as purely American that holds with it the beliefs and traditions of their nation. As a result the pioneering ideals of self-reliance and independence started to appear constantly in American writings. American authors have great respect for the value and importance of the individual. They tend to reject authority and to emphasize democracy and equality of people. One of the most fascinating characterstics of American literature is the vast difference in the literature written in various regions of the country. They include the literature from the North, South, West , Midwest etc. This trait observed in American literature is suggestive of the fact that the regional cultures played a dominant role in shaping the literature of America.