The ultimate goal of this paper is to emphasize the dependency between Nature and mankind through Sophie Mackintosh’s novel The Water Cure (2018). It highlights the importance of Nature and its positive role in human life. The main plot is based on the three female protagonists named Grace, Lia and Sky who live on the island with their foster parents named King and Mother. The Island is used as a place of residence by King in order to keep his daughters under safety from the toxin filled mainland. Mackintosh also introduces other women from the mainland who reaches out for help from Mother in order to recover from their physical and mental illness as a result of toxic situation which has turned men against women. The analysis of toxic manhood is a representation of ecosystem and Mankind as whole. The daughters are often exposed to different therapies modeled by King and Mother as a practice towards self-control and self-protection from toxic men. After the death of King and the Mother, with all their gained knowledge and strength from nature, the daughters have decided to exit the island in a way to make the people on the mainland turn towards nature and tradition. As a whole, it is difficult for mankind, culture and nature to survive without one another because they are interconnected.

Surrogacy is not a new term today. Even illiterates are aware of the benefits it provides. For some it’s a means of propagating their family lineage and for some a handsome means of employment. Humans have now started probing Nature for exploitation. Till now it were resources that man experimented but now human himself is a laboratory. Talking of surrogacy, Rita Garg has shown in her novel An Abbreviated Child the harmful effect of Surrogacy on society. As Marx acclaimed over exploitation and consumption has been catastrophic to humanity since generations. I have tried to explain the harmful effects of surrogacy in my paper.

Good relationship among human beings is the greatest and most unique virtue without which cordiality can never be achieved. There is a relationship between a man and a man, a woman and a woman, and a man and a woman. If there is a relationship between two men, it is between a father and his son, or between two brothers or between two friends or between a father-in-law and his son-in-law. If there is a relationship between two women, it is between a mother and her daughter or between two sisters or between two friends or between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. If there is a relationship between a man and a woman, it is between a man as a father and a woman as his daughter or between a man as the husband and a woman as his wife or between a man as a lover and a woman as his love or between a man as a brother and a woman as his sister. If every type of these human relationships is to remain healthy and exemplary, it should mainly depend upon certain virtues. Such virtues are “[reciprocal] understanding, acceptance, patience, adjustment, [forgetting and forgiving], and kind-heartedness” (Smith, Virtues of Healthy Relationship n.pag.). All types of human relationships except sexual reveal explicitly both pleasantness and unpleasantness through the behaviour of the people involved. However, sexual relationship between a man and a woman is private and personal, and it is not meant for public discussion and consumption. It may be between the lovers, or between the married partners or between the married men with the women who are married to other men or vice versa. Whatever may be the nature of sexual relationship, both the partners in sex behave in a way that pleases both in a given situation and thereby they can enjoy the sexual pleasure to their hearts’ content. However, their behaviour during sexual relationship may not be similar. Though both will not behave identically during sexual relationship, their acts may certainly place them in a state of excitement. Besides, sexual relationship other than conjugal is not a preplanned one but it is entirely spontaneous in a situation suitable to it. Of man and woman who are involved in sexual relationship of any nature, it is only the woman who is the more imaginative, impulsive, and strange in sexual behaviour with her man. The writer of this article has taken Arun Joshi’s The Last Labyrinth to study the eccentric behaviour of women characters during their conjugal and extra-marital relationship with Som Bhaskar.

The life of Indian native women from the stage of their maturity to the attainment of their motherhood is strictly controlled by traditional patriarchy and matriarchy. Though they attain empowerment through education and profession before marriage, their life continues to be very hard because they have to abide by the Indian cultural values of life both inside and outside their homes. Their life becomes harder still when they are not allowed to assert their empowerment in the choice of life partners of their own. Their life turns to be the hardest when they enter into marital life without asserting their individuality against their parents’ decision. The parents also feel their responsibility to provide their daughters with well settled marital life. Till then, they live with mental tension. It is their Indian traditional belief that they will find themselves placed in heaven after their death only when they provide their daughters with the marital life for their contentment and happiness. Only when their married daughters go to the houses of their husbands, they feel relieved of having done their parental duty with satisfaction. But the in-laws in the houses of their husbands begin considering them as unnecessary intruders but not as additional and permanent members of their families. In spite of this hard reality, Indian native women silently accept all that happens to them before and after their marriage without expressing their agony and discontent openly. There are many empowered married women who never hesitate to strike back in words and actions to any kind of unpleasantness meted out to them in their marital homes. However, there are women who carry on with their marital life without minding anything bitter happenings to their relationship in the houses of their husbands. If traditionally brought up empowered women get married to men living as American immigrants, they enjoy their independent and individual life without any restrictions in America. They change their cultural habits to the changing scenario in America and behave like conformist to American cultural habits. Yet, some women who find themselves in America after their marriage continue to be strong conformists to Indian cultural habits. They never change their traditional life according to changing situations in which they are placed. Ashima in Jhumpa Lakiri’s The Name Sake is a total conformist to Indian cultural habits in the midst of multi-Culturalists during her American immigrant life. In her ways of living, she stands as an odd woman out in the midst of Indian women conformists. This is the nucleus of this critical article.

Different Indian social statuses and religious faiths prescribe certain conventional dresses as the significant and well established cultural habits for their traditionally brought up women from their childhood to adulthood. However, the dress code for them is not one and the same in all the different castes and religious groups. It varies from one religion to the other and from one caste to the other. Thus, Indian women have to wear necessarily different dresses, quite suitable to the various occasions and functions at home and in the society. They should also follow their dress code without traces of any kind of violation. Till they attain their womanhood, they are allowed to wear and enjoy all types of different and modern colour dresses. No sooner do they attain womanhood than they are forced to wear only very traditional and civilized dresses like half or full saris of any colour. Soon after their marriage, they should wear very cultured dresses both at home and in public. There is also an unfortunate group existing among married women and this group comprises only the widows. As and when the women become widows, all religious groups consisting of all castes except orthodox Hindus will not mind their women wearing the decent dresses. But in Hinduism, when a married woman loses the life of her husband, she cannot wear all types of colour dresses. She is forced to wear only the white sari to indicate that she is a widow and she is always kept in marginalization. Thus, Indian women cannot enjoy their independent individuality in the choice and wearing of modern dresses, which they like most during their different earthly roles. Moreover, the state to which they belong plays a major role in deciding their dresses too. It is said, “Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, and Christianity are some of the major Indian religions. Each religion influences the way people think, live and dress but at the same time, the state to which the people belong has a great influence on their dress culture” (Indian Traditional Dress n.pag.). The empowered Indian Hindu women who become widows even during their alien life choose to remain in their alien land itself so that they can lead their life wearing all types of modern dresses without either any restrictions or indicating their familial status. The writer of this article has chosen Sumita, the protagonist of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s short story Clothes to prove his hypothetical statement true. As a widow, Sumita chooses to stay back in America so that she can enjoy her immigrant life by wearing all types of colourful modern dresses by asserting both her independence and individuality.

Modern women of today are totally different from those of yesteryears. Unlike traditional women of the past, they are equally educated and professionally well placed like their men. Besides, they are more practical than their men in devising ways and means for their betterment in life whenever some unexpected but grave situations arise during their sojourn on earth because they have independent income of their own. Thus, their empowerment has strengthened their mind how to survive successfully as and when some dire need arises. But at the same time, there are also some empowered women who remain rooted to their traditional life as house wives and yet, they do not lose their hope of survival when they meet with unfortunate situations in life. They have got their mental inclination strengthened for their survival without much ado and without dependence on anyone, either a relative or a friend. With their strengthened survival disposition, they can adjust themselves cleverly to their unpredicted predicament in life. They also take timely decisions then and there to keep themselves completely free from any kind of domination and discrimination for their betterment of independent life at home. But in doing so, they never deviate from their destined ways of familial and marital life nor do they lose their state of mind in their precarious situations. They find some meaningful ways in their irretrievable situations. In the process, they prove themselves practically wiser women in preserving their peace and happiness. In many novels of Women of Indian Diaspora and those of the native women writers, it can be clearly seen how women face their familial, marital and societal problems, and then how with their positive state of mind, they establish their individual and independent identity. Their self-confidence helps them carve out their indelible name for themselves. This article critically analyzes how a deserted mother and house wife with her three daughters in Shashi Deshpande’ novel A Matter of Time braves unexpected hardships because of her being suddenly deserted by her husband, and how the mother decides her own destiny without losing her state of mind and individuality.

Bharati Mukherjee throughout her novels discusses the condition of Asian immigrants in North America, with particular reference to the changes taking place in south Asian women in the new world. The protagonists of Bharati Mukherjee fight for their right as a woman and as an individual in the new world. They prepare themselves to be their own gravitational force rather than revolving their male counterparts. Desirable Daughters is the story of the different paths taken by three sisters, Padma, Parvati and Tara. Of the three sisters two immigrate to America after their marriage while the other settles at Bombay. Padma, the eldest, lives with her husband in New Jersey. She is a TV personnel anchoring a famous programme on an Indian channel run by her lover. Padma is the provider of her family. She maintains her image as an Indian symbol in all ways. She always advocates the eastern tradition and is seen criticizing Tara for being too Americanized. She is living a life of a successful careerist in New Jersey and she does not want to disturb her smooth life on any untoward old sentiment. She moves her life successfully and she is a successful survivor of the new world. Tara seems to be the most detached of the three sisters yet a successive valley lady. She is a divorcee who lives in Francisco. In the early years of her marriage, while she lived with her husband Bish at a gated community in Atherton, Tara exhibits the behaviour of a typical Indian wife, deep rooted in tradition and Indian culture. In her days at Atherton she believed that she was leading a contended life. But as time goes by she feels that this form of life is not fulfilling for her. She realizes that she is not the fittest to play the role of an Indian wife, so she asks for a divorce. Tara’s decision to divorce Bish represents a new consciousness in Tara where the regulations of Indian traditions and culture no more bind her actions. Tara is now more independent and a progressive Californian who has changed many of her ideals, including her concept on sexuality. Tara liberates herself from being a traditional Indian mother and tries to act as an American mother. Tara is a valley lady, being a divorcee she works as a volunteer at a preschool unmindful of her husband’s high position in the society, she is a single parent of a teen age boy who proclaims himself to be a gay and she leads a happy private life with many boyfriends. Tara is a successful survivor of the new world.

Male Gaze, Fetish Objects and the Representation of Female Body in Indian Rapper Badshah’s “Genda Phool”

Pipilika Muktidham, a recent novel in Marathi is published by Granthali and authored by an emerging and talented literator Mr Balasaheb Labade. Its narrative style, poeticism,experimentalism,surrealism,inventiveness,psycho-analysis method have made this novel unique and path breaking literary work in Indian regional literature. The novel is not centred around any charater. It does not focus any particular event. It offers new dimension to Marathi literature by not following the established framework of the Novel form.This novel is very powerful contemplation of human emancipation presented through satire and symbolism. In the search of Mukti (empancipation), this thought proviking novel many times offers disturbing portrayal of our Time.

The term ‘Globalization’ is no more a term in association with trade, economy or business policy only. Globalization opened up many avenues to progress for the first world countries. The effects of liberal economy transcends the thresholds of family customs, traditions and overall the socio cultural fabric of the entire society. The sensible and creative novelists like Sudha Murty minutely observed and traced out such effects through their literary works. Sudha Murty’s fiction ‘House of Cards’ manifests eroding effects of money power on family relations. The crosscurrents underneath the surface of actions in the novel are explored here.

Feminist writings have played a significant role in exposing and resisting female subordination. In a male centered society women are segregated on the basis of gender. A black woman is subjected to double discrimination on the basis of her color and sexuality. Novels written by female authors reveal the different facets of female oppression and retorts by collective female resistance. Taslima Nasrin’s French Lover tries to share her views on the patriarchal standards of life and resistance to female oppression through her characters. The paper evaluates the work in the context of the interlocking system of racism and sexism. Emphasis is given to the economic independence of a woman to overcome the constrains of the patriarchal society. The economic freedom that the protagonist has attained empowers her to break the male ego who dominates her life. One who reads the novel from a cultural perspective finds most of the characteristics of racism and sexism in the novel. The feminist attempt for liberation from patriarchy and realization of a genuine female identity finds a central place in the novel.

This essay examines the hopes, fears, and fantasies that accompany the future social and political projections of a transition to solar energy, with the aim of adding context and complexity to the principle energy narrative already emerging around this source of energy. Solar contains a double promise: energy without fuel and infinite energy. Despite the radical possibilities that might emerge from this fundamental redefinition of our relation to energy, solar also contains limitations, including the weight of the materials necessary to create solar power and the reality of existing forms of economics and politics that contain the changes solar might bring into existence. Against the tendency to imagine that solar energy will produce radical social change on its own, the essay argues for the need to articulate and struggle for “solarity,” a politics appropriate to the coming challenges of the solar era.

The present paper addresses Bengali personal names and considers personal naming as an important aspect of nature love among the people of this nation. It takes linguistics eco-onomastic approach and studies Bengali names based on environmental elements. In this regard, online Bengali personal names were analyzed and categorized based on their content meaning. The findings of the present study approved the hypotheses of the present article regarding the trace of environmental elements and environmental approaches in male and female Bengali proper names. The third hypothesis partially accepted as 41.57% of male Bengali proper names included elements such as moon and sun and this ration regarding female names was 28.02%, but the total frequency of flower representation in female names (36.81) was more than any other elements in both genders.