EDITORIAL

It is my privilege and honour to greet the members of the Re-Markings’ fraternity with a feeling of excitement and humility on this precious moment that has brought us to the landmark 25th anniversary of our publication since we began our adventurous journey in March 2002. In the vast continuum of time twenty-five years may be a mere speck but I wish to reiterate that what we truly need to celebrate is not the time span but our commitment to consistently provide a platform for the dissemination of ideas and concerns related to vital vibrant issues across the globe.
As a student in school I used to be fascinated by William Wordsworth’s line, “My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky.” Today, I can say with a great deal of confidence that, among other avowed aims of Re-Markings, I hold paramount the need to bring the hues and shades of the uplifting rainbow of hope to the pages of the journal through debates and discourses on every conceivable issue that urges and compels us not to turn our gaze away from grim reality be it that of religion, race, colour, caste, class, gender, language, nature, community, nation or what you will. There can be little doubt that what we see all around is bound to fill us up with gloomy despair but it cannot be denied that what stirs us through such disconsolate terrains is our responsibility to believe and keep marching ahead in sync with the line from Rabindranath Tagore’s “Jodi tor dak shune keu na aase taube ekla chalo re” (If no one responds to your call, move alone) or with Arthur Hugh Clough’s poem “Say not the Struggle nought Availeth.”
Through 1500 plus articles, interviews, essays, stories, interviews, poems, memoirs, reviews and other variant genres like films, television, mass media, journalism and social media, Re-Markings has been able to showcase efforts made by individuals and communities to uphold the quest for truth and justice in whatever way possible. If established and acclaimed celebrity writers and academics have been adorning the journal with their brilliant creativity, it is heartening to mention that we have spared no pains to encourage and motivate young upcoming scholars and teachers to contribute their very best to the journal. Through our rigorous peer-review process and constant mentoring we have guided these enthusiastic youngsters to enhance their skills to understand complex texts and issues by adhering to meticulous and ethical norms of research and express their observations and views with clarity in lucid jargon-free language and style.
The current celebratory number of Re-Markings offers a kaleidoscopic range and variety of significant material catering to troubled landscapes on planet Earth in every possible domain of existence from ancient Kapilavastu to contemporary Africa, America, India, Australia and other spheres of human existence. Many a heart of our avid readers is bound to ‘leap up’ to see the towering presence of the first African Nobel Laureate in Literature – Wole Soyinka – at the top of the list of contributors in this volume. It is especially noteworthy that his poem shows the path of resistance and activism as medium of transforming the world by challenging the status quo approach adopted by the wielders of power everywhere. It is a matter of great significance that when the esteemed Soyinka was approached to contribute to this edition of Re-Markings, he instantly agreed to share his rebellious poem. Remarkably bold and strong even at the age of 91, the writer, playwright, poet and activist – who dared to cause affront to the dictatorial attitude of Donald Trump towards artists and intellectuals without bothering that his outspokenness would deprive him of his US citizenship – told Dr. Tijan Sallah that he was happy to learn that Re-Markings found his poem ‘usable’. Such a unique gesture of humility from a person of his stature reminded me of the lines from Kipling’s poem “If”: “If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,/ Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, … / Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.” 
The voices from Africa in this issue succeed in bringing to the foreground the immensity of the power of narratives that have emerged from a continent that had for long been relegated to the epithet of a ‘dark’ and ‘uncivilized’ part of human civilization by many obsessed bearers of “the White man’s burden.” Likewise, narratives of traumatic disasters not only make us aware of the human ability to unleash mass destruction through Nuclear bombs and other lethal arsenals but also highlight how the resilient power of the struggle of survivors have motivated succeeding generations to remember, like Hemingway’s Santiago, that “a man can be destroyed but not defeated.” No less important are events like the Operation Blue Star that wrought unimaginable havoc on a particular community whose collective motive had always been ‘seva’ or service to humanity. Besides the post-colonial discourse on Macauley, the illuminating essays on teaching poetry, the Paika Rebellion in Orissa, the battle against vested interests to preserve and sustain the environment and thought-provoking insights into the arena of marginalized populations – be it the Dalits in India or the African Americans in the world’s most powerful democracy – have greatly enriched the contents of this beautiful bouquet of ideas. It is no small matter that, taken together, the contributions here amply reflect, like the rainbow, the spirit of harmonious multiculturalism cutting across divisive barriers and boundaries of discrimination and prejudice.
To all distinguished members of the Advisory board, editor friends, eminent contributors, passionate readers and ardent admirers of Re-Markings, I place here on record my everlasting gratitude. Thank you, one and all!
 
Nibir K. Ghosh
Chief Editor


CONTENTS
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The Deathless Battle Hymn - Wole Soyinka / 7

 

Five Poems - Tanure Ojaide

New Acquisitions / 9, Black & White / 10, Revisiting Warri / 10,

I Seek Transformation / 11, They Call Us Names / 13

 

Fame, Solitude and B. Traven: An Autobiographical Essay

Jonah Raskin / 15

 

Revisiting the Bluestar Operation and its Aftermath

Amritjit Singh / 27 

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The Poet Harry Lloyd Van Brunt:

Memories of My Benevolent Teacher 

Tijan M. Sallah / 36

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Surviving Hiroshima: A Conversation with Charlotte Jacobs on Hiroshima Survivor and Activist Setsuko Nakamura Thurlow

Robin Lindley / 47

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Short Story

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The Body - Véronique Tadjo / 59

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There is No Cause for Control: Everything is Under Alarm!

Tess Onwueme / 65

The Hotel Malogo - Helon Habila / 71

 

How Does Poetry Teach Us? What Does it Teach?

An Essay in Notes

K. Narayana Chandran / 83

 

Macaulay: To Whip or not to Whip, That is the Question

Shanker Ashish Dutt / 103

 

Tim Winton’s Shrine: Dramatizing Trauma

Mukesh Ranjan Verma / 117

 

The Buddha as an Epic Hero in Aśvaghoṣa’s Buddhacarita

Nibir K. Ghosh & Sunita Rani Ghosh / 125

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Hero, Myth, Memory and Discourse: The Literary

Afterlives of Buxi Jagabandhu and the Paika Rebellion

Tanutrushna Panigrahi / 141

 

On the Cross: Tennessee Williams’s

The Night of the Iguana–An Exploration

Shernavaz Buhariwala / 151

 

The American Dream and Exceptionalism in Contemporary

African American Narratives of Resistance

Konda Nageswara Rao / 158

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Revising History: A Study of Narratives of Resistance in

P. Sainath’s The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom

Parwinder Kaur / 167

 

Environmental Ethics and the Challenge to Anthropocentrism in

Ranjit Lal’s Budgie, Bridge and Big Djinn

Amandeep Kaur & Ankdeep Kaur Attwal / 177

 

Rewriting Dalit History through Memory:

Reading G. Kalyana Rao’s Untouchable Spring

Harpreet Kaur / 184

 

Review Essay

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On the After-life of the Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984

Tej Nath Dhar / 191

 

Hindi Cinema vis-a-vis Muslim Representation

Pradeep Trikha / 195

 

“I Love, Therefore, I Am”: Harjeet Singh Gill’s

Dialogue with a Girl Friend

Hiba Aleem / 197