Reading Bapsi Sidhwa's "The Crow Eaters" in Context

A few days ago. I wrote an update on my South Asian Literature course. As I noted, we are working our way through Bapsi Sidhwa's The Crow Eaters.

Students--two on each day--are taking turns making presentations, with the rest of us joining in, any time, with comments and questions, which help to augment or critique the presentations.

I have told the class that we are trying to decode the text, thereby generating meanings. I have told them that this helps us to understand how a text means, an idea prominent in contemporary literary theory. L have cited, in particular, Roland Barthes's S/Z: An Essay, a stimulating, book-length study of Sarrasine, a short story by Honore Balzac.

The Crow Eaters presents the life of the Parsees, a small minority group in India that came there centuries ago from what is today Persia, pushed out by Arab expansion.

The Parsees retain their traditional Zoroastrian religion, which largely distinguishes them from the Hindus and Moslems. I wanted my students to gain some knowledge of this religion, to complement what they learned about Hinduism and Islam through reading Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable and Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi respectively.

The Crow Eaters depicts the struggles and triumphs of Freddy, an entrepreneur, who, while trying to improve the condition of his family, has to contend with a troublesome mother in law who lives with them. At the same time, we observe how he copes with the British who are the colonizing power. He tries his best to thrive under those circumstances.

Before the Thanksgiving Break, which ends this weekend, I gave the class an examination consisting of two questions. Each student was required to answer one question.

One of the questions was "Discuss the image of women in the works we have read in the South Asian literature course." I also noted that they could include the film "Salaam Bombay," which we had watched. The second question was "Discuss the Western influence or presence in the works we have read. I explained that "Western" in this context means British and American.

The students tackled these questions quite well and some of their answers were outstanding. Whether they dwelt on Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable, Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi, Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost, Bapsi Sidhwa's The Crow Eaters, or the film "Salaam Bombay," they displayed a good, nuanced understanding of the issues.

Update on my South Asian Literature Course

My plan for the South Asian Literature course this semester has undergone some changes. After teaching Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable, we moved on to Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi. However, hardly had we gone beyond the half-way point than my health, which has been uncertain for many months, deteriorated, and I had to be hospitalized again, at the Abbot Northwest Hospital in Minneapolis.

Fortunately, after slightly over a week, I was released. During my absence, an English Department colleague graciously stepped in and taught Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost. When I heard that she was teaching this novel, I was delighted, having taught it myself several years ago, as part of the South Asian Literature course.

Upon resuming my teaching of the course, a week ago, we started reading Bapsi Sidhwa's The Crow Eaters. When I was choosing texts to use this semester, I made a point of including Sidhwa, largely because I wanted some example of writing from a Pakistani writer. Having taught The Crow Eaters before, as well as Sidhwa's other novel, Cracking India, I knew that Sidhwa's writing is accessible to undergraduate students.

We are approaching the midway point of this novel now. Then, we will read Romesh Gunesekera's Reef, another novel I have taught before. Like Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost, Reef affords memorable insights, from a fictional point of view, into the Sri Lankan experience.

Time seems to have gone by very fast, and I know we will not be able to read Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown. What a pity. In the future, I plan to change my strategy: I will use Rushdie's novel early in the semester, to ensure that my students have some experience of reading and reflecting on this very gifted, albeit controversial writer. I also doubt if I will be able to introduce any poetry, although I prepared myself to teach some poems from that part of the world, such as Michael Ondaatje's.

Though I have some regrets, I take solace from the fact that by the end of the semester, my students will have a fairly good idea of South Asian Literature, a tradition that, rich and vibrant as it is, appears rather remote to many people.

Teaching South Asian Literature Again

The St. Olaf College Fall semester started a week ago, on September 4. I am teaching two courses: Writing and South Asian Literature. I wish to say a few things about the South Asian Literature course, which I taught for the first time in the Spring of 2011, as I reported on this blog.

I am using Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable, Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi, Bapsi Sidhwa's The Crow Eaters, and Romesh Gunesekera's Reef. For the first time, I am using Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown, a work I had not read before but am reading now, in preparation for teaching it later in the semester.

I was eager to include a Rushdie work after teaching his Midnight's Children and finding it both intriguing and interesting, on account of its narrative techniques--which are somewhat complex and confusing--its historical, cultural and religious references and allusions, as well as its style of presenting characters.

I wanted to teach this novel, prompted by, and regretting, the fact that I had not read it. I felt ashamed of myself for not having read this famous literary work, even though I know there are dozens of other famous works I will not be able to read. Sadly, one can only do so much in a lifetime.

One thing I would really like to do is include some poetry, as I told my students today. I hope we will have a few days at the end of the semester to read some poems. Currently, I am reading The Cinnamon Peeler, a collection of poems by Michael Ondaatje, both for my own education and also in order to prepare a selection of poems I can use when or if the opportunity arises. I plan to complement any poems I might choose from this collection with poems from other sources.

Overall, the semester has started well, and I am looking forward to a rich learning experience for my students and me.

Teaching "Twilight in Delhi"

My South Asian Literature class in now comfortably underway, in its fourth week. We started with Mulk Anand's Untouchable, which I have taught many times. We then studied Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi, which I had not read before.

Reading Twilight in Delhi in the wake of Untouchable has been a valuable experience, a broadening of horizons. While Untouchable relates the experience of Indian Hindus, Twilight in Delhi deals with Indian Muslims.

Never having read a novel about the world of Indian Muslims, I found Twilight in Delhi refreshing. Fortunately, I know something about Islam, especially coming from Tanzania, a country where about half of the population is Muslim and about half Christian.

I spent considerable time explaining Islamic principles to my students, as a way of establishing the groundwork for discussing Twilight in Delhi. I described the five pillars of Islam and showed three videos: this one, which presents the Islamic call to prayer; this recitation of the Quran; and a small boy's recitation of Surah Yasin.

Twilight in Delhi deals with such themes as patriotism, love, and marriage. It portrays family life, wedding customs, healing and burial practices. From its very beginning, Twilight in Delhi exudes nostalgia for the Delhi of the past, whose grandeur and magnificence fell apart as a result of British rule.

This novel presents the fate of Delhi as a metaphor for the human condition. In ways reminiscent of existentialist writings, characters in Twilight in Delhi contemplate and talk about the meaning of life and the transience of human achievements. This reminds me of Al-Inkishafi, the classic Swahili poem, which reflects on the demise of the old famous Swahili cities, making us wonder about the meaning of life itself.