Journal articles on the topic 'Novel, Malayalam'

Macondo like Malgudi, a fictional town created by the Latin American novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his magnum opus One Hundred Years of Solitude with its cosmic spirituality and surreal characters lies deep-hearted in the minds of literary lovers all over the world. But far away from Colombian hills and miles apart from its vast seas lies Vijayan’s Khasak. A fine work of magical realism which changed the trajectory of Malayalam novel that got lost in translation like many other great works of Malayalam literature. This paper attempts to critically analyze both these novels in their socio-cultural and post-colonial perspectives and how they contribute to the genre of magical realism.

The Malayalam film industry, prominently known as “Mollywood,” is one of the fast-changing faces in Indian cinema. This paper tries to examine one of the Malayalam movies, Chemeen, through the lens of Marxist Feminism. The primary text chosen for the study is the movie, Chemeen, an adaptation of Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai’s novel with the same name. The story revolves around the lives of Karuthamma and Pareekutt, lovers whose life cannot be led together because of the strong influence of caste and class in their society. This is one of the liberal texts in Malayalam Literature narrating the Kerala fishing community’s lives, customs, traditions, and beliefs. The research paper’s primary focus will be on society’s hierarchy through the reflection of Mollywood cinema, the stereotyping of certain characters based on their class and caste, the aftermath of marriage, and the domineering male-centric society female fellowships through deities.

Although the relative versus absolute ambiguity in superlatives is well established, there is no consensus regarding how the comparison classes which gives rise to these ambiguities are determined. Two factors, the LF syntax of –est and focus, have been said to determine the comparison classes. In this paper, I provide novel data from Malayalam, a language without adjectives, which require both a movement theory of superlatives and focus to derive the readings.

Development and environmental discourses are two sites that determine the Third world experience today. The paper maps the nuances associated with the emerging feminist narratives that are concerned with the degenerating ecologies and the feminine side of the same. While development feeds on the memories of underdevelopment it also creates nostalgias, protests, marginalizes subjectivities and a new time of degeneracy where environment is all over the discussions. The well-known Malayalam writer Sara Joseph’s novel “Aathi” is discussed here in order to understand how the feminist articulation of concerns around environmental degradation leads to new geographies to resistance.

Deleuze and Guattari list out three characteristics of a minor literature—it is written in a major language from a marginalized position; its nature is thoroughly political; and it has a collective value. Yet, as this article shows by taking the case of T.S. Pillai’s Malayalam novel Chemmeen (1956) and its various afterlives, world literatures illuminate greater varieties of scale and of characteristics than can readily be covered by a single binary opposition between minor versus major, local versus global, original versus translation, singular versus plural. The concept of ultraminor literature, especially in the South Asian context, thus gives us a chance to engage with an undefined space that archives historical, translational, political, linguistic, idiosyncratic, and aesthetic tales of a text within and outside its tradition.

The current pandemic situation has completely altered our lives. In this context, it is imperative to look back at the history of human civilization to see how the ancient faced such situations. Works dealing with the horrors of plague have been written in various regional literature across India, the famous being Rabindranath Tagore’s Puraton Bhritto, Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi and U.R Anandamoorthy’s Samskara. The article focuses on a Malayalam novel, Vasoori, written by Kakkanadan (1968) which revolves around the lives of common village folk caught in the jaws of smallpox. The novel focuses on the lived in experience of a community forced to face the disease almost every year. It is enlightening to go through the novel in the current Covid-19 pandemic as it concentrates on the first human reaction to pandemics – fear. By using the motif of smallpox, Vasoori pushes the reader to reflect on the ancestral fear of humans to infectious diseases and how it completely shatters the body’s internal perceptions. Thus reading Vasoori in the current pandemic situation is one way of understanding how the human race dealt with a disease for which there seemed no solution in sight.

A comparative study would be at its best when the elements compared are more similar to the point. A parallel study in Comparative Research is studying the similar elements found in two different literatures that are taken for research. In that way, the Tamil novel Karuvaachi Kaaviyam and the Malayalam Novel Kadahai Kaetkum Suvargal which was translated into Tamil, are taken for a comparative analysis. Both these novels portray the life struggles of women. The main characters of these novels Karuvaachi in Karuvaachi Kaaviyam and Umadevi in Kadhai Kaetkum Suvargal, are sexually harassed by their husbands Kattaiyan and Preman respectively. Inspite of being ill-treated, they are highly sentimental about their Mangal Sutra (Thaali) as their social set up has made it deep-rooted in their minds that it is the symbol of security and protection for women. The characters of Karuvaachi and Umadevi, clearly show the simple and submissive attitude of women which forgives men when they apologize even if they are faulty and not perfect just because they are the stronger sex. But end of the Kattaiyan affected by leprosy and Preman who dies of multi-resistant tuberculosis throw light into the fact that men who do injustice to women can never escape punishment. The parallel study of the Comparative research has surveyed the similarities in these novels and brings out the thought that both Karuvaachi and Umadevi have been depicted as typical women trying their best to preserve their virtual integrity and culture to the core.

76 Background: Most of the World’s cancer patients live in non-English speaking world. However, there is a lack of authentic web-based cancer informational tools in non-English language, especially in low and middle-income countries. With increasing access to internet, there is an emergent need to democratize health information in native languages. The senior author was sensitive to this unmet need and created a comprehensive cancer website in Malayalam, a language spoken by more than 35 million people (www.keralacancercare.com). We describe the steps in creating the web resource and provide data on its use across various web and social media platforms. Methods: The senior author produced educational video sessions and cancer literature in Malayalam language. The website had three main sections – cancer basics, cancer A-Z and cancer FAQs. Cancer basics section contained sections on various basic cancer information such as types of malignancies, definitions, staging, symptoms, risk factors, diagnostic tests and screening. It also included sections on various treatment modalities, treatment side effects and information on cancer risk reduction, genetics and prevention. Cancer A-Z section contained instructional videos on major cancers. Cancer FAQs addressed common cancer myths and questions. A social media profile along with contact information through email service was also launched. The total cost incurred for development of such a web-based tool with presence on social media was less than USD 1500. Results: Since the launch of the web resource in May 2017, the website has now been accessed by more than 5000 unique visitors from 84 countries. More than 50 cancer related questions have been addressed since the launch. The web views of some of the brief informational videos such as ‘how to reduce risk for cancer’ has been viewed more than 150,000 times in social media pages. Conclusions: Creating authentic cancer informational web-based tools will have an immediate impact on addressing cancer healthcare disparities around the world. National and regional cancer societies must foster and encourage creation of novel healthcare informational tools that can truly democratize and empower people.

Machismos, as is the instance with feminineness for women, are publically built gender profiles under which men are pigeonholed. The inferred affiliation between male bodies and machismos or masculinity presents us with an understanding of the sex/gender gap where ‘sex’ is seen as remaining a preeminence and ‘gender’ as a set of facets which are ancillary. New directions in feminist studies have begun to take up this issue of reconsidering or rediscovering masculinity, especially in the context of recent works of Literature. Arundhati Roy’s Man-booker award winning novel, The God of Small Things (1997) is predominantly a novel about battle- in and through the body. Velutha, “The God of Loss. The God of Small Things” (Roy 265), whose name in Malayalam means “white” (Roy 73, 175 and 334), the colour affiliated both to sorrow and sunlit, has been depicted by the writer as the emblem of masculinity. Arundhati Roy builds an account that focuses on bodily happenstances that rebel considerable discourses and function as edges of cultural and social acquaintances. This study has been enthused by the comprehension that the subject of masculinity in women’s writing has not yet been explored to that extent, which it was expected to be! Little attention has been given to the analysis of women’s writing with the tools that theories of virilities provide. What masculinities emerge in Roy’s The God of Small Things is the multi-layered, mongrel text, wavering between traversing valuations of indigenous acuities of the standing of the man, the bequest of interventionism, and the impresses of novelty and globalization! Hence, this study, not only reconnoiters the different traits of masculinity present in Velutha as envisioned by a female writer, but it also deliberates in detail the male identity construction.

This paper addresses the problematic birth of the Malayalam language of Kerala in medieval South India. I say “problematic” because, of course, languages are never really born. Indeed, the dominant tradition of language genesis in India long asserted that all languages there only gradually arose by degenerate mutation out of the primordially beginningless Sanskrit. If there is a general truth to be found here, it is that since there are no human communities without speech, novel forms of language must always be emergent from earlier forms. Language genesis is thus always a matter of linguistic differentiation, away from some standard and towards another. But the sustained contrivance of these particular claims for Sanskrit also reflects another linguistic truth: that languages and their constituent elements are routinely shaped, conditioned, and ideologically figured by being themselves made into objects of discourse. In terms of language differentiation, this means the continuum of transformations that may at some point coalesce into a claim for linguistic separateness is always modeled and monitored in and through language itself. The reflexive or metalinguistic nature of this process, however, is always contextually oriented to the social fields in which it operates, so that the ideological positions and interests in those fields tend to carry over into the discursive products of a language and its literature. This study will attempt to highlight the web of relations among language varieties, ideologies, social contexts, and identities, as documented in a treatise on the language of medieval Kerala when that region first raised its claims for a distinctive linguistic identity.

Migration is the movement of people from one place/country to another in search of better job opportunities or educational purposes or occurs due to political and social conflicts. This brings about a change in their social, cultural and psychological circumstances, which often makes them feel alienated in their lives. They experience a sense of disillusionment and loss of identity, which gradually leads them into psychological trauma where they start to question their identity. Benyamin’s Goat Days portrays the life of Najeeb, a poor Malayali who in the hope of earning money decides to work in the Gulf. However, his journey of hope soon transforms to despair with the cruel treatment of his sponsor. He finds himself, alienated among the herd of goats and yearns to meet his family. His desolation pushes him into a psychological trauma where he starts to identify himself with the goats. This paper focuses on the concept of migration, alienation and identity crisis faced by Najeeb, the protagonist who represents the hopes and desires of every Malayali who yearn for a sumptuous future, which they believe will be offered in the Gulf. Moreover, the novel is set in the background of the Oil Era in the Gulf which gives every Malayali the dream of a secure future.

AbstractA new species of terrestrial crab, Geosesarma notophorum (Grapsidae, Sesarminae), is described from Pulau Lingga, an island east of Sumatra, Indonesia. Geosesarma notophorum belongs to the G. malayanum group of species, but can be distinguished from congeners in having iridescent green eyes, the shape of its carapace, form of its external orbital tooth, and structure of the male first pleopod. The female is unusual in carrying the young crabs on its back.

Ethnobotanical knowledge plays an important role in therapeutic beneficial by traditional people of the Yercaud hills, Eastern ghats of the State Tamil Nadu. This current study focused on documentation of medicinal plants used to treat several ailments. Enlightenment of medicinal plants data was gathered from the Malayali tribes, using an integrated approach like botanical collections, group discussion and interviews with questionnaires in the year 2018 – 2019. During the survey a total number of 40 ethnomedicinal plant species belonging to 38 genera and 25 families were documented. Traditional names of the plants by traditional healers and local community members were prepared as a checklist. The checklist of medicinal plants used by Malayali tribes are listed with botanical name, vernacular name, family, parts used, mode of preparation, mode of admiration and medicinal uses. We observed that the documented ethnomedicinal plants were commonly used to treating snakebite, earache, chest pain, body pain, lumbago, eczema, haemorrhoids, jaundice, dog bite, sprain, beetle bite, epididymitis, bone fracture, arthritis and painful menstruation. The results of this study showed that the tribal people still depended on medicinal plants in Yercaud Hills for treating various diseases. This would be a baseline data of medicinal plants for future research and potential development of novel drugs.

A new species of small freshwater prawn in the Macrobrachium pilimanus species group was found in the upper southern peninsula of Thailand. The prawns in this group exhibit velvet setae on the telopodites of the second pereiopods. The new species, named M. prachuapense sp. nov., is endemic to Thailand. It has several characteristics that make it standing apart and different from closely related species in the group, e.g. M. naiyanetri, M. forcipatum, M. malayanum, M. dienbienphuense, M. eriocheirum, and M. pilosum. The distinguishing characteristic of the new species is the shape of carpus of the second pereiopod (sub-cylindrical and subequal to palm), similar only to that of M. dienbienphuense. However, a fully-grown male of the new species was less than two-third the size of a fully-grown male M. dienbienphuense. Phylogenetic analysis further enhanced its novel species status with respect to its position in the phylogenetic tree relative to other closely related species.

The article explores ambivalence among middle-class Indian migrants who return to India after their retirement. It discusses intergenerational ambivalence from the dual perspectives of the relation between older migrants and their parents, and that linking the former to their migrant children today. Older migrants’ transnationalism is an important yet under-researched topic. It offers insights into the temporal dimension of ambivalence: how family contradictions accompany and change throughout the life course, and how they orient migrants’ understandings of the past, present, and future. Central to the analysis is the relation between migrant intergenerational ambivalence and the historical development of the Malayali middle class at home and in the diaspora. Moving beyond studies on ambivalence that mainly focus on Euro-American societies, it explores the phenomenon in postcolonial locations. The article discusses the extent to which colonial forms of socio-geographical mobility shape older migrants’ ambivalence across generations, vis-á-vis broader middle-class expectations around educational/professional attainment, reproductive choices, and care provision. It suggests that a temporal perspective on ambivalence is useful to highlight how transnational family ambivalence is shaped not only by present-day uncertainties but also by political and cultural history. It also enhances our understanding of how dispersed families negotiate ambivalence in the long term, and the cumulative effects of these negotiations in the production of novel care arrangements in the present.

<p><strong>Resumen</strong></p><p>El presente artículo propone una reflexión sobre las prácticas de coacción y exclusión que implementa la necropolítica del modelo neoliberal, a través del análisis de dos novelas de la escritora chilena Diamela Eltit: <em>Mano de obra</em> (2002) e <em>Impuesto a la carne</em> (2010). La dictadura del mercado ha exacerbado los mecanismos de control sobre los cuerpos y la feminización de la pobreza demuestra que son las mujeres quienes más sufren la exclusión y opresión de una regulación determinada por la acumulación capitalista. Sin embargo, en ambas novelas son los personajes femeninos quienes van a operar como potenciales agentes de cambio, generando pequeños “lugares de desacato” o esferas minoritarias de resistencia que desafiarán la lógica utilitaria y el dominio global del capital.</p><p><strong><br /></strong></p><p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>This article reflects on coercion and exclusion practices that implement the necropolitics of the neoliberal model, through the analysis of the two novels by the Chilean author Diamela Eltit, <em>Mano de obra</em> (2002) and <em>Impuesto a la carne</em> (2010). The dictatorship of the market has exacerbated the mechanisms of control over the bodies and the feminization of poverty shows that women are the ones who suffer the most from the exclusion and oppression of a regulation determined by capitalist accumulation. However, in both novels, female characters operate as potential agents of change, generating small "places of contempt" or minority spheres of resistance that will challenge the utilitarian logic and global dominance of capital.</p><p> </p><div id="SLG_balloon_obj" style="display: block;"><div id="SLG_button" class="SLG_ImTranslatorLogo" style="background: url('chrome-extension://mchdgimobfnilobnllpdnompfjkkfdmi/content/img/util/imtranslator-s.png'); display: none; opacity: 1;"> </div><div id="SLG_shadow_translation_result2" style="display: none;"> </div><div id="SLG_shadow_translator" style="display: none;"><div id="SLG_planshet" style="background: url('chrome-extension://mchdgimobfnilobnllpdnompfjkkfdmi/content/img/util/bg2.png') #f4f5f5;"><div id="SLG_arrow_up" style="background: url('chrome-extension://mchdgimobfnilobnllpdnompfjkkfdmi/content/img/util/up.png');"> </div><div id="SLG_providers" style="visibility: hidden;"><div id="SLG_P0" class="SLG_BL_LABLE_ON" 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This article analyses the politics of the literary canon of the early twentieth century Malayalam novels with particular focus on the impact of the novel Indulekha (1889) in literary history. The inception of novel as a literary genre is widely regarded as a point of departure for Malayalam literature leading to the development of modern Malayalam, thereby shaping a distinct Malayali identity. Interestingly, the literary histories which established the legacy of Malayalam prose tend to trace a linear history of Malayalam novels which favoured the ‘Kerala Renaissance’ narrative, especially while discussing its initial phase. This calls for a perusal of the literary critical tradition in which the overarching presence of Indulekha has led to the eclipsing of several other works written during the turn of the twentieth-century, resulting in a skewed understanding of the evolution of the genre. This article would explicate in detail, on what gets compromised in canon formation when aesthetic criteria overshadow the extraliterary features. It also examines how the literary history of early Malayalam novels shaped the cultural memory of colonial modernity in Kerala.

The word bursa means keeping your face open. Barda's opposite is that sabita, the central character of the novel, has opened her face. He has also opened his mind. It is learnt that Muslims question the rituals of their religion, which sabita denies saying that it is the highest of all, and that only those who belong to their minds can reach heaven. Moreover, christianity withdraws from the true and light redeemer of the spiritual violations committed in the name of religion, the atrocities that take place within monasteries, and the spiritual and light that prompted him to get out of life that he had been conducting for more than twenty-four years. Although both belong to a different religion, this article reveals that their theocratic principles are the same.

Sri Ravi Varma Thampuran is a writer who has established a reputation for himself in the field of Malayalam literature through his literary works on social, cultural and political issues. Mudippech is his fifteenth book and fifth novel published by Manorama Books. This novel is a continuation of Ravi Varma Thampuran's novel Bhayankaramudi written in 2014. In a nutshell, the theme of the novel is the history of the Kerala Renaissance. The book contains biographies of about sixty Renaissance heroes. The postmodern Malayalam novelists began to pursue a narrative style that transcends the boundaries between history and fiction in1990s. There are many instances that showcases historical background in which lived characters enter into novels in Malayalam literature. M. Mukundan who entered the Malayalam literature as a powerful advocate of modernity embarked this trend. Mukundan's novels Pulayapattu and Pravasam are perfect examples of this technique. Mukundan himself becomes the narrator in Pravasam. The living novelist (persona) himself becomes the narrator (character). Similarly, Ayyankali and Ambedkar appear in the novel Pulayapattu. Thereafter, many novels have entered the field. Many instances of this style include Thakshankunnu Swaroopam (U.K Kumaran), Paleri Manikyam Oru Pathira Kolabathakathinde katha (The Story of a Midnight Murder), K. T. N. Kottur (T.P. Rajeevan), Janakatha (N. Prabhakaran), Manushyanu Oru Aamukam (A Preface to Man) (Subhash Chandran), Akkaporinde Irupath Nasrani Varshangal (Twenty Christian Years of Conflict), Manthalirile Irupathu Communist Varshangal (Twenty Communist Years in Manthalir) (Benyamin), Andhakaranazhi (E. Santhosh Kumar), Karikottakari (Vinoy Thomas). Writings based on imagination are not happening at present. A tendency to look beyond imagination and alternately look at real facts developed. Famous theorist Linda Hutcheon argues that fiction and history are not two separate entities but they travel in the same direction. Historical writing is similar to fiction. Writing history is the same as writing a novel. On account of this, postmodern novelists bring history into the fiction. Ravi Varma Thampuran's Bhayankaramudi and Mudipechu are scrutinizing the deeply rooted religious and racist consciousness in Kerala society. In both novels there is an inquiry into the transcendental understanding of the Renaissance. Ravi Varma Thampuran is making a conscious attempt to present history by transcending narrative. The novelist adopts an approach that revolves around the history of Kerala and rereads and reconstructs the history of Kerala by deviating from a theme that presented the occurrences in the lives of only a few individuals. Ravi Varma Thampuran's aim is to present the cultural history and the renaissance history of Kerala through this novel. In fact, it can be asserted as a novel that goes beyond history. We can affirm that such a novel has never existed in Malayalam literature before. This is because the novelist introduces the characters and the plot to the novel, abandons them, takes the reader back to time and travels through the centuries-old history of Kerala. Such an approach is contemporary in novels of Malayalam literature. There are myriad historical events and historical figures who come into this novel with very few characters. Ravi Varma Thampuran begins the novel like a depiction of a dilapidated illam (traditional house of a Namboodiri). The dilapidated illam is not just an imagination or description of a house. Beyond that, the novelist presents some of the problems that are entwined somewhere in the psyche of the contemporary Keralites associated with savarnas and caste system with this description. What the novelist really wants to articulate is not a description of the house or the life of the character named Sruthakirti who lives in the illam. Moreover, he brings the history of Kerala in the novel. The novel is a journey through disregarded historical documents. History, anti-casteism, racism and extremism are the themes in the novel. Sruthakirti and Azad Mohan are the victims of the mysterious conspiracies of contemporary media. The novel gives us a picture of the present state of media activity as factories that produce communal detestation. A situation where the land is terrified. There are many other minority racial conflicts behind the anti- Brahmin movement that has been discussed in our land for ages. It is related to the economic power and one of the most discussed issues presently. The Namboodiris and the ancient landlords are impoverished today. This work explicates that those who come to power in favour of progressive politics or progressive activists ... or claim to be progressive activists in society ... all have another side of racism and money domination. The misfortune endured by Sruta Keerthi in the panchayat office as well as in the village office illustrates this situation. This work is one of the rare works on time written in Malayalam. Kalanillatha Kalam (Kunchan Nambiar), Nimisham (Moment) (G. Shankara Kurup), Samaya Pravahavum Sahithya Kalayum (Time Flow and Literary Art) (K.P. Appan), Sthalam, Kaalam, Cherukatha (Place, Time, Short Story) (Soman Nellivila), Akkaporinde Irupath Nasrani Varshangal (Twenty Christian Years of Conflict), Manthalirile Irupathu Communist Varshangal (Twenty Communist Years in Manthalir) (Benyamin) and so on have been rare works in Malayalam that has reference to time. Time and place are seldom mentioned in the novels. It is remarkable how time and pace are addressed in this novel. It is also noteworthy that the novel examines the term renaissance. The work presents local and foreign (colonial) streams of the Renaissance. We often say that Renaissance was brought from Europe and imported here. But internally, there has been a renaissance here as well. It is done through Sanskrit study by Punnassery Nambi. (Pattambi Sanskrit School and Pattambi College) Unlike the past, the topic of Renaissance is much discussed in this novel. In recent times there has been no real renaissance in the so-called renaissance debates. When the subject of renaissance which was discussed a century ago is presented now it shifted to politics. Furthermore, his novel Bhayangkaramudi, written six years ago, was based on the transformations that global religious extremism has brought to Kerala society. But the situation today is even worse than it was before. Many of the issues mentioned in Bhayangkaramudi previously are happening in Kerala currently. However in this novel, Mudippech, he has made an inquiry into its present condition. He states this fact precisely in his novel. It was the colonial regime that gave the renaissance for us, the renaissance was achieved by the protests organized by subordinate class, and the eminent personalities like Mannath Padmanabhan organized a march for the Avarnas and savarnas with the in the Vaikom Satyagraha.. All these are discussed accurately in the novel. The the history of the renaissance unravels through the solitary struggle of a Brahmin girl named Sruthakeerthi. The novel has a captivating journey through the time. The time cycle is presented in the novel as something that can be carried forward and backward. Kalangana accompanied with Sruthakirti’s sleepless night experiences. Our subsequent journey is based on the concept of the time cycle. We also become familiar with multitudinous Renaissance heroes in those journeys into the past. The knowledge they impart gives us a whole new realm of experience. Beginning with Thunchath Ramanujan, Ezhuthachan who is meditating on the rock of wisdom on the banks of the river Shokanashinipuzha in Chittoor and goes back to the time of Asan and Ramacharitham. Similarly, the novelist draws back us to the comprehensive history of the Kerala Renaissance through various renaissance heroes including the Zamorin, the Portuguese invasion, feudalism, Pazhashiraja, Veluthambi Dalava, Gauri Lakshmi Bai, Swathi Thirunal, Thycaudu Ayyavu Swamikal, Arattupuzha Velayudha Paniker, Sree Narayana Guru, Muloor, Kerala Varma, Kandathil Varghese Mappila, Chanthu Menon, Raja Ravi Varma, Chattambi Swamikal, Ayyankali, Punnassery Nambi, K.P. Karuppan, V. T. Bhattathiripad, Dr. Pulpu, Barrister, G. P. Pillai, E. M. S. Namboodiripad. In the novel, Ravi Varma Thampuran portrays great personalities like Punnassery Nambi and Sree Narayana Guru vibrantly in the novel. This novel gives us a direct glimpse at how society is fragmented and functioning towards anarchy. After Shrutakirti gets to know the true history of Bhayankaramudi through time cycle she gets infuriated like Ugrabhadrakali (the Great Goddess) in Mudippechi symbolizing a fire that is going to burn the arrogance of every separatist who is trying to make our country a bayangarmudi. Ravi Varma Thampuran honestly apprised the truths he had discovered in his own style within a restricted framework. The essence of this novel is the five hundred years of renaissance history of Kerala. Here the novelist is bringing history through a fantasy. Ravi Varma Thampuran has adopted a new narrative technique in the postmodern novel. As a matter of fact, the novel interprets the life experience of an individual through the social, political and renaissance history of Kerala. More than a fiction, a historical investigation is taking place here. It is appropriate to describe Ravi Varma Thampuran as a historian rather than a novelist. It can be described as a novel that investigates the Kerala renaissance. In addition, the process of deconstructing the contemporary Kerala renaissance and rewriting it racially and ethnically is critically approached here. This novel meticulously depicts the crucial moments in the history of Kerala.

Abstract In two experiments, we examined the hypothesis that bilingual speakers modulate their cognitive control settings dynamically in the presence of different interlocutors, and this can be captured through performance on a non-linguistic attention task. We introduced Malayalam–English bilinguals to interlocutors with varying L2 dominance through a pre-experiment familiarisation and interaction phase. Later, participants did the Flanker task while the interlocutors appeared before each trial. While in experiment one participants did the Flanker task with equal distribution of trials, in experiment two we manipulated the monitoring demands by changing the frequency of trials. Results showed that high-L2 proficient bilinguals had lower conflict effect on the Flanker task in the presence of balanced interlocutors in both the experiments. The results provide strong evidence of dynamic adaptation of control settings in bilinguals with regard to different passively present interlocutors. The results further extend the predictions of the adaptive control hypothesis with novel manipulation.

This essay argues that Arundhati Roy’s inclusion of numerous Indian vernacular words and phrases in her fiction is carefully calibrated to serve the author’s activist political agenda. This is true not only of her first novel, The God of Small Things, but also of the more recent Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Both feature a Bakhtinian or dialogic interplay of linguistic modes. The earlier work poses two languages against each other: Malayalam, the primary language of Kerala, and English, the medium of narration and the preferred tongue of the prominent Ipe family. The outcome of this contest highlights the Ipes’ imprisonment within a life-denying straitjacket of outworn prejudices and conventions. In The Ministry of Utmost Happiness the linguistic terrain broadens to include several tongues of the subcontinent, along with English. Roy gives special exposure to two: Urdu and Kashmiri, to reclaim them from the oppression both of them, along with their speakers, are undergoing at the hands of the dominant Hindi-speaking majority. Tilo, a pivotal character, is enthusiastically polyglot, a trait which accords with her more general adaptability and freedom from sectarian narrowness. The other central figure, the transgender Anjum, resembles Tilo in her resistance to strict definitions of her fluid selfhood, but must endure forms of verbal as well as physical violence. Like her first novel, but on a more capacious stage, Roy’s second aims at speaking multilingual truth to monolingual power.