• Shyamali Banerjee

The term ‘social change’ instantly reminds me of the kind of people’s expectations leading to huge political upheavals that I have come across through a series of literary works, specifically novels and poetry, that had overpowered the literary cultural syndrome in Bengali literature in 60s’. And it was no coincidence when a host of writers in Bengal including poets, dramatists, film makers constituted one common literary platform under the name of Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) and thus aesthetic creations were taken to street to create a nationalist sentience against all Fascist forces or social injustices. And that had become a history indeed. The more we try to depreciate those movements as just unrealistic, absurd, redundant or futile, the more its originality, genuine thrust for establishing equality or ushering in an era where the dictatorship of the proletariats was envisaged, become apparent. When I look back to the history of literary movement in 60s and recall the lines of a very famous poet Shankha Ghosh “ Nivanta oi chullite ma ektu aagun de/aar ektu kaal bechei thaki bachar anonde / dui dhare dui ruhi katla maroni fandi / Bachar ashay haat hatiar/ mritu te mon di …. Enkindle the fire of an exhausted pyre of corpses / Let us live a little while more for the sake of living/ The death snares are laid by the bigwigs on both sides of the river / Hands turned on weapons with a hope to live on / But deeply engrossed in death’, the poet’s clarion call for bringing a social change which is very much implied within every single stanza of the poem, is unquestionable. Here the fire symbolizes both the fire of the cremation where dead corpses are lying in wait to be dragged on fire and also the dying fire of the earthen oven which needs to be enkindled to cook some grains as people were dying of famine and there was no food to eat. Or a poem like Jessore Road by Allens Ginnesberg “Millions of babies watching the skies / Bellies swollen, with big round eyes / On Jessore Road- long bamboo huts / No place to shit but sand channel ruts/ Millions of fathers in rain / Millions of mothers in pain /Millions of brothers in woe / Millions of sisters nowhere to go / One Million aunts are dying for bread / One Million uncles lamenting the dead / Grandfather millions homeless and sad Grandmother millions silently mad / ……’ . Here, of course, the poetry is talking about one social unrest ie, famine and imminent social change that the people are craving for. Now, standing at the crux of a time when globalization, liberalization, digital India, sab ka vikash san ka saath have become the buzz word of the time, all these plethora or dithyrambic rendition of a social change become slightly complicated and of course unabashedly propagandist. We, the people of India, may feel at a loss as to comprehend what kind of narratives or stories are we feeding with, or what kind of social change we are moving towards or what kind of sustainable development or all inclusive growth we are aiming at. Given to a context that narratives or story telling technique or narrative enunciation plays a crucial role, this article would explore how Society Change became an ally to channelizing an alternative myth of Nation State which stood opposed to Nehruvian concept of Egalitarianism. And for that end, instances from Esterine Kire’s novels would be drawn.

"Story Telling and Society Change : The Myth of Nation State revisited in the novels of Eesterine Kire", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no.212-217, June 2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIRCX06040.pdf

"Story Telling and Society Change : The Myth of Nation State revisited in the novels of Eesterine Kire", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no. pp212-217, June 2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIRCX06040.pdf