how to write an essay on my mother India for schools exhibition
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All About My Motherland
The evolution of our country's identity from the unifying mother of yore to the strict father of contemporary nationalist times.
By way of methodological throat-clearing, consider this little gem in which Rupert Brooke describes a “Heaven” as imagined by fish:
“…they say they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond?…We darkly know, by Faith we cry, The future is not wholly Dry. […But] somewhere, beyond Space and Time, Is wetter water, slimier slime”
So, cut to our raucous present: who are these creatures — fish, fowl or bovine progeny — who are imagining our motherlands and fatherlands, our “wetter water, slimier slime”? And where? And when? And why?
The image of Bharat Mata that crystallised in late 19th century Bengal, even in the context of widespread agricultural distress — opium, indigo, jute — was unmistakably marked by the lush and fertile landscapes of its original location, of sonar Bangla. Abanindranath Tagore’s Bharat Mata was endowed with the soft voluptuousness that is associated with the “magical” women of the East — the jadugarnis of Kamarupa. This image undoubtedly draws on Hindu cultural resources — she is a sort of chaturbhuji Durga — but it is important to assert, particularly in the context of the pitrabhumi that is being sought to be inserted into public consciousness, that Tagore’s Bharat Mata is maternal and not even remotely exclusive in its iconography. And yet, this is no cliched maternal fantasy. Indeed, the power of the icon resides precisely in the fact that it is flexible and can be bent, reimagined for different purposes in different situations. I wish I could translate Sumitranandan Pant’s Bharatmata Graamvaasini — but the image that emerges is very much one of rural poverty — mitti ki pratima udasini. It is another matter that, given the context of its enunciation, Pant’s Bharat Mata is empowered by ahimsa to become a force for transformation: jag janani jeevan vikasini. But, in the run of time, there are other transformations, other appropriations. So, Nargis’s Mother India is yoked to a harsh modernity, which leaves little room for pastoral consolations. And Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’s Bharat Mata, marked by the 1960s, is a snarling, sardonic witch who devours her own children.
The evolution of our country's identity from the unifying mother of yore to the strict father of contemporary nationalist times.
By way of methodological throat-clearing, consider this little gem in which Rupert Brooke describes a “Heaven” as imagined by fish:
“…they say they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond?…We darkly know, by Faith we cry, The future is not wholly Dry. […But] somewhere, beyond Space and Time, Is wetter water, slimier slime”
So, cut to our raucous present: who are these creatures — fish, fowl or bovine progeny — who are imagining our motherlands and fatherlands, our “wetter water, slimier slime”? And where? And when? And why?
The image of Bharat Mata that crystallised in late 19th century Bengal, even in the context of widespread agricultural distress — opium, indigo, jute — was unmistakably marked by the lush and fertile landscapes of its original location, of sonar Bangla. Abanindranath Tagore’s Bharat Mata was endowed with the soft voluptuousness that is associated with the “magical” women of the East — the jadugarnis of Kamarupa. This image undoubtedly draws on Hindu cultural resources — she is a sort of chaturbhuji Durga — but it is important to assert, particularly in the context of the pitrabhumi that is being sought to be inserted into public consciousness, that Tagore’s Bharat Mata is maternal and not even remotely exclusive in its iconography. And yet, this is no cliched maternal fantasy. Indeed, the power of the icon resides precisely in the fact that it is flexible and can be bent, reimagined for different purposes in different situations. I wish I could translate Sumitranandan Pant’s Bharatmata Graamvaasini — but the image that emerges is very much one of rural poverty — mitti ki pratima udasini. It is another matter that, given the context of its enunciation, Pant’s Bharat Mata is empowered by ahimsa to become a force for transformation: jag janani jeevan vikasini. But, in the run of time, there are other transformations, other appropriations. So, Nargis’s Mother India is yoked to a harsh modernity, which leaves little room for pastoral consolations. And Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’s Bharat Mata, marked by the 1960s, is a snarling, sardonic witch who devours her own children.
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