Name:-Hitaxi H Bhatt.
Roll
No:- 03.
Enrolment
No:- PG15101004
Paper
No:- 11 ( The Postcolonial Literature)
Topic:-
The Calcutta Chromosome as a postcolonial novel.
Submitted
to:- Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.
First of all let’s see what is postcolonial
Literature.?
- Postcolonial
literature is the writings that are produced by the members of the native
culture or by the settlers. Who have ties to both the invading culture and the oppressed
one.
The post-colonial novel of today is the result of a
political phenomenon that had reached a height of demonic dimensions by the end
of the first world war. The roots of colonization go back to the most ancient
days of civilization. Colonization, a system of political, economic,
psychological and cultural domination of one country over the others, always
spawns a pattern of cultural and political marginalization of the colonized
country. It establishes a myth of intellectual, social, cultural, religious and
physical inferiority of the colonized.
The language of the master imposed on the native creates a typical
colonized like situation. Colonized learns to curse and tell the colonial
power. They says, “You taught me language and my profit is I know how to
curse.” The victim may not always curse but very often, being aware of the
weakness of the victimizer, discloses them to establish his identity.
In the recent years we can see the deteriorating effect of
the colonization has given birth to a post-colonial consciousness. In fact the
colonized and de-colonized are seized by a “double consciousness.” Thus,
all post-colonial writings of
the last decade is ambivalent about any stark dualism or native celebration of
the post –colonial writer enables him to reject and accept the dynamics of
power controlled by the imperialistic country. The dual perspective if on the
one hand has introduced the quality of hybridity in all world literature on the
other hand, post colonial literature has marginalized the centre that is for
reducing significance of the westerns canon.
Amitav Ghosh’s ‘The Calcutta Chromosome’(1996) is an attempt to focus on the
implications of a post-colonial novel
and to ascertain the post-colonial characteristics to be found in the
Chromosome. The fantastic world of the novel present a process of various
thematic and technical experimentations and innovations. Many questions
regarding the “fevers, delirium, and discovery.” are raised by Ghosh and to
make the answers comprehensible to the reader, the writer plays with time,
space, and the story-line. The parameters of the “post” in context of
Indian English writings, in considered to be the literature after 1947. But the
current implications of the word much enlarged, established the beginning of
colonization from the early infiltration of the British traders into Indian
ethos to the installation of the British Raj. The post-colonial consciousness
begins a century before the first war of independence in 1857 and countinues
distinctly through the present years. The meaning of post-colonization has
spilled over into the realm of history, patriarchy, all kinds of boundaries,
the nuances of selfhood and art.
Post- colonial literature, initially, of all forms of
colonial way of life, gradually, also became a vehicle to communicate the
disillusioned spirit of the natives. But such expressions are rare and not to
be found in the ‘Chromosome’. Occasionally, a nostalgia for the English period
is suggested by calling Murugan as Morgan, Raman Halder as Roman Halder or referring to the robinson street
with its old colonial name: not the new Indian name. Ghosh would have departed
from factual truth if he had filed to portray the reverential attitude of the
Indians for all fair-skinned humans, a legacy of the colonial rule. The novel
by Ghosh considered to be a “spine chiller,” must be read a second time to
realise that it is not mere scientific thriller but a novel about mysteries of
life and the many deep rooted carvings of man in general. In a scientific
thriller, everything is resolved satisfactory at the end of the novel but in
the chromosome the theme of search for immortality moves through a never- ending
line of female characters: Mangala, Aratounian, Urmila, Tara and one also hopes
to meet many more Laakhans, Murugans and Antars through the ages.
The story of the novel moves through the closing years of
the nineteenth century into the whole of the twentieth century and then passes
on the early years of the twenty first century. Apparently, it covers the
colonial and post- colonial years of the Indian history. Of course, the
exercized by the Ghosh. The novel opens in the early years of the twenty-first
century when Antar an Egyptian computer programmer and system analyst in New
York suddenly finds the ID card of one Murugan, an old colleague and researcher
flashed on his computer screen. He discovers the Murugan had mysteriously
disappeared on 21st August 1995, better known as the World Mosquito
Day, from Calcutta. Murugan himself deeply interested in malaria parasite.
Murugan firmly believed that there was an other mind behind this entire
operation of research and discovery. It was his theory that through Ross was
thinking that, “he was doing experiment on the malaria parasite” yet … “all the
time it’s he who is the experiment.” He had uncovered that there is one
Mangala who with her handy-man Lucthman,
Laxman, Lachan, Lokan was carrying out the experiment through an indigenous
method.
Ghosh through the story-line subvert the superiority of
western scientific of the western scientific investigation and proves that not
only were they far behind the scientific progress made by India but here, it
had been spear- headed by woman. If “matter” and ‘science’ were the stronghold
of the accidental world “anti-matter” and “counter science” was controlled by
the oriental. It is a suggested conquest by the East of the West- A typical
post- colonial framework. It is also an example of the defeat of the patriarchy
and a victory of matriarchy. The search for ‘immortality’ is carried on by
Mangala and Lutchman. Ghosh has granted them great liberty and decolonized the
members of the lowest social strata- the sweeper and the scavenger class.
Foucault in the “Order Of Discourse” states, “Discourse is
the power which is to be seized.” This power is traditionally controlled
by colonizer. But in this novel the “discourse of silence”, typically female in
nature, has been handed over to Mangala. It is stated in the novel: ….wouldn’t
you say that the first principle of functioning counter-science would just have
to be secrecy. The way I see it, it
wouldn’t just have to be secretive about what it did( it could not hope to beat
the scientists at that game anyway.) It also would have to be secretive in the way
it did. It would have to use secrecy as a technique or a procedure.
The colonized Mangala is the upholder of the cult of secrecy
and by this weapon she controls Ross, Farley, Grigson, Cunningham and all those
so-called
White male investigator of the malaria parasite. Those who
come in the way like Farley are cursorily destroyed. Mangala uses the potent
weapon of silence to score intellectually, over her male counterpart Ross and
others. She tries to find a cure for syphilitic paresis through “counter
science” of faith. Ross endeavors to solve the mystery of malaria through
science. Against this, the power of knowledge to control “ the ultimate
transcendence of nature” is an attempt to improve the theory of “migration of
the soul” or we can say that “transposition of the soul” is an extension
of the Indian concept of the “transmigration of the soul”. In the novel, the
boundaries between the real and unreal are quickly dissolved. The entire drama
of the novel is seemingly accepted by The Hindus (Murugan Sonali, Urmila, Tara) The Muslim (Antar, Saiyad,
Murad Hussain, Alias Phulboni) The Christian ( Mrs. Aratounian and Countess Pongracz).
Ghosh in fact, suggests a
board based acceptance of the theory of “transmigration of soul” by the
colonized and the colonizer. The concept easily acceptable to the Hindus is an act
of sacrilege for Christians and yet, Ghosh makes it possible because
“post-colonial allegories are concerned with neither redeeming nor annihilating
history, but with displacing it is a
concept and opening up the past to imaginative revision.” A similar exercise is
carried out by the historian in the Indian tradition.
In India, the Indian
writers have gone back to their roots very seriously and yet, the Indian
English writers have not totally rejected the language of the colonizer: they
have very vigorously gone for hybridization. Of the adopted language and thus,
the indigenous words have been very freely accommodated, in Salman Rushdie’s
creative works one can clearly see the aesthetic use of Hindi and Urdu words.
None of the Indian writers have distorted the master’s language as many of the
Afro-American writers have consciously done. Ghosh has followed the Indian
practice of using native words like “Bibi, Dhooli, Addad Al-Turab, Iskuti” etc.
he has not disturbed the syntactic norms of the English language. What he has
practiced is known as “abrogation” of
the language of the centre ( refusal to
give it a expression of post-colonial experience.)
Ghosh has not only employed
an indigenous theme of the great mother goddess Kali but has also projected the
awareness, nuances, and ambiguities of the post-colonial consciousness. In the
novel, the two contrasting societies are clearly etched. The society of the
colonizer led by Ross and the “other” culture conduct by Mangala. The irony of
the situation is that the so called masters are mere puppets in the hands of
this powerful woman. The colonizers were in search of temporal truth and the
colonized natives were motivated by higher goal of “eternity”. The tussle
between the Western and Eastern civilization is highlighted and victory is
granted to the extensively oppressed and exploited. The equation of power is
not limited to political overtones but is carried on to the world of mechanical
and intuitive knowledge. Murugan and later Antar, two computer experts are
chosen to be subsequent Laakhans to the succeeding Mangala that is Urmila and
Tara. One comes to know during the course of the novel that Tara is being
specifically cultivated to pilot this mysterious cult. The continuity of
motivation action and achievement is never ruptured. The Indian philosophy of
the Kalchakra is highlighted and reestablished. Counter- science always labeled
as inferior, rising from some unknown depth of the human mind strikes back at
its tormentor.
Thematically and
technically Ghosh has deconstructed the traditional western forms. His constant
“border-crossing” from fact to fiction, the disruption of the realities of the
narrative technique in fiction. (plot, development, character, manipulation of
time etc.) has been done away with as something ineffectual or superfluous,
this experimentation has enriched him with a “double vision” that enables the
writer to present a cross cultural critical analysis. Like Rushdie, Ghosh has
employed “magic realism” to invoke the impossibility of the happening without
losing the immediacy of its experience.
Allegory a characteristic
form of post-colonial writing creates deconstructs, restructures, reaffirms,
myths. The mythical character of the Ramayana. Laxman, and Urmila, Murugan the
much revered god of south India. (the eldest son of goddess Durga.) are interwoven
into the text simultaneously to reenact the eternal war between satya and
asatya. Tara, Urmila and Mangala are introduced into the text to recharge to
the concept of the mythical goddess durga. The story-line moves with many under
tones. The historical incident of Ross’s invention is consciously shrouded in
mystery. Ghosh the fiction writer turns himself into a historian. In fact his
role is not much altered as “both history and literature are interested in
power” and “etymologically the two worlds are the same and only in English have
they separated in this way.” The constant blending of fact and fiction has
generated a situation. Where past has lost its antiquity. By crossing over the
physical time, the writer has invented new allegorical meanings. The collision
between the west and the east has also been projected symbolically through an
ideological conflict tradition and modernity, faith and reason, scientific
knowledge and intuitive knowledge.
Post-colonial writing
mystifies the real demystifies. It is not temptation of exotic expression that
compels a writer to follow this intricate path but it becomes a necessity that
gives his the magical power to represent the culmination of many dynamic,
culture, and social forces. The pluralistic sensibility of post-colonial
writings has a significant impact of the writers of the coming century. Amitav
Ghosh in The Calcutta Chromosome as a post-colonial writer has rearranged the
simplistic equation of life, death and immortality to prove that “word manipulated”
artistically can establish theories that are and yet stranger than fiction.
Works Cited
Chambers, Cliare. "postcolonial prespective on the Calcutta
Chromosome." Sage journal (2003): 58-72.
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