Conifers Call 

Shimla Journal of Poetry and Criticism

Vol 1   No 1

Spring 2009 

Chief Advisors

Som Ranchan,  P.C. Mathur

Editorial Board

Mita Biswa, Prem Tenzin Negi, Jasvinder Singh, I.K. Sharma

Usha Bande, R.N. Tripathi, Deepak Keperet
 

Reviews Editor :
Vinay Mohan Sharma

Managing Editor:

Naresh K Verma

Editor

Harish K Thakur
 

Editorial Address

Thakur Building, New Totu, Shimla, 171011

Phone: 9418008900

coniferscall@ymail.com

harish_070@yahoo.co.in

No part of this volume can be reproduced in any manner without the prior permission of the editor.  Cover design, art and poetry by the editor.

LAND AND SEA

In Poetic Harmony

©By Dr. Mohammed Fakhruddin (Bangalore, India)

INAUGURAL PAPER PRESENTATION IN TAIWAN WORLD POETRY FESTIVAL 2005,

AT KAOHSIUNG, ON 25 MARCH 2005

Soothing breeze from woods,

Soft moonlight, misty landscapes,

Blooming tulip buds.

            Land is the solid of the earth's surface, as distinguished from the sea or water, or from the air. Land is also an expanse of country; ground; soil.

Sea is the expanse of salt water that covers most of the earth's surface and surrounds its land masses.

            LAND AND SEA are the two faces of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other. Nature strikes a balance between the two and maintains an eternal harmony for peaceful co-existence!

            Let's explore the secrets of the domain of sea, the existence of life under water and how man has been attracted towards it. What inspired man to make sea a part of his life and go out and out to invent new kind of tools, machines and explore the expanse of sea for his benefit.

Superior of all

living things is man, sun in

him surpasses all……….

INSIDE THE HAVELI:A STORY OF SILENT BUT JUDICIOUS COMPROMISE
Anju Jagpal

Anita Desai classifies Inside the Haveli by Rama Mehta as a modern classic about an independent young woman’s struggle to hold on to her identity in a traditional world. The novel traces and portrays the journey of a girl Geeta, born and educated in the metropolitan city Bombay. She is married at the age of nineteen to Ajay Singh, a Professor of science in Udaipur. Ajay’s family belongs to the aristocratic traditional class that lives in the ‘Old City’, which is surrounded by a four hundred year old ‘bastion wall.’ Their haveli, Jeevan Niwas, is one of the oldest and the most prestigious havelis of Udaipur. The novel covers a span of roughly fifteen years and progresses in a cyclical movement. Divided into three sections it explores the three important features of man’s life---birth, death and marriage.

Culture, Language and Globalization

*Raghuvansh Mani

            To reconsider globalization and culture at this juncture of history cannot be accomplished without taking into account the present recession in the world economy. It is difficult to forget the concept of welfare state and the system of mixed economy, generally put against the open market policy supposedly leading to the so called ideal of Laissez-faire.¹  But our context in this article is different as it is related to the general matters of language and culture.

            The process of globalization in India started with the declaration of the New Economic Policy by the Indian government headed by Narsimha Rao as the Prime minister and Manmohan Singh as the finance Minister in the year 1991. From the very time the process of globalization was associated with marketization and liberalization. All these economic elements lead to the consumer culture ² in our society which has many facets. In the multiplicity and variegated colours of Indian Culture they function in a complicated process.
 

Female Bonding in  Lilacs Bloom in My Backyard

*Rashmi Bajaj & Aparna Batra

In A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf had lamented the long absence of female friendships in literature :

I tried to remember any case in the course of my reading where two women are presented as friends… Almost without exception they are shown in relation to men. It was strange to think that all great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen’s day,  not only seen by the other sex, but seen in relation to the other sex.¹

            However, during the last few decades there has been a drastic change in the Western Feminist Literature Scenario as Female-Bonding and Sisterhood have increasingly become the Sina-qua-non for the crusade against the patriarchal value system. Mutual friendships and collective gender identity of women are being perceived to be effective political weapons for subverting the subjugating patriarchy and procuring human dignity for a woman.

CONTEMPORARY INDIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH AND POET
Jasvinder Singh

            For quite sometime poetry has been regarded as a great motivating force in the contemporary English literature. It has been gaining greater strength and deeper roots  in the contemporary era. Many dedicated poets have taken the initiative of creating forms to attempt to give poetry its due share of esteem when it has been facing degeneration at the hands of a lot many people who do not vouch for it.

Poetry Today and its Bright Future
Jasvinder Singh

            Poetry is a serene expression endowed with the art of enlightening and entertaining through innovative thoughts. Poets most often see at life as a splendid gift of mother nature to we living beings,: that it is the supreme blessing to we human beings.

            Through observations, experiences and study of human behavior around poets express themselves in poetry which sinks deep into the hearts and minds of all those who love poetry.

POEMS