for the next session

[Amrita Tulika]

Dear friends,

 

It would help if we could add a few articles/essays to our reading list for the next session. While evaluating the scripts I realized that some topics were dealt with quite competently by the students whereas some others were clearly deficient in content.

 

Firsrt, the questions that were answered well. Pre- 1857 period and the one on Delhi College were pretty good. Narayani Gupta's chapter on this period seems to be more than adequate for the answers. In fact, some of the answers had the entire history of Delhi College, upto 1878, and it was done well, while having only a passing reference to Gail Minault's article. 1857 Revolt and Imperial Architecture answers were also handled quite well. Partition and Urban Dislocation are again topics that do not need any further input at the moment.

 

What we do need to improve on is the topic on Ghalib and the one on Memory and History. Ralph Russell's piece," Getting to Know Ghalib" ( Ralph Russell ed.The Oxford India Ghalib : Life, Letters and Ghazals, OUP, 2003) is quite useful. It is a 40- page article which gives a fairly good idea of Ghalib's poetry. With the help of this piece we can shift the focus from Ghalib's Delhi to Ghalib's poetry. The question on Ghalib was not answered well. I came across only two or three answers where the student had actually read the piece by Naim and used it quite well. What I also discovered was that there is considerable interest in Ghalib's poetry as almost all the scripts had some of his couplets. We could build on this popular interest and aid the students in understanding the poetry better. Also, this is one topic where Hindi medium students are not at a disadvantage. Ali Sardar Jafri's introduction is very good. So, with the help of these two pieces we could make the topic come alive for the students.

 

Momery and History topic is a difficult one. I came across only one answer where Charles and Karoki Lewis' book was used very well to answer the question on urban expansion and historic architecture. May be, at the moment, we have to just do that and Shahid's article, Past Remains. There have been some interesting write- ups in TOI. Unless and until some of us manage to take out all the cuttings and compile them in a folder we can't use them for our teaching.

 

It would be really nice if some one could translate Narayani's chapters for Hindi medium students.

 

Amrita

 

[Srimanjari]

Dear Amrita, thanks for the 'informative' mail. Will get back to you in a day or two.
Srimanjari

[Saumya Gupta]

Hi friends

Amrita's well timed mail is probably the best way to start the new
session and also energise this list. Indeed this list was designed to
provide us with a platform to air our views and queries on the paper
without taking the trouble to travel to the campus, or anywhere else!

The script correction exercise was indeed useful. Examination scripts
- with all their problems - are still , i think, quite a pointer to
the way a subject is being received by the students. And help us to
fine-tune our reading material and pedagogical techniques.

The questions that i found was answered quite well was on partition.
The hindi medium students did particularly well in the Anees Qidwai
answer, though some of them had just mugged up the whole text! I did
not get any script that attempted the Urban dislocation question.
Making of New Delhi was also answered in an average manner - very
average in fact.

Ghalib was ubiquitously attempted and answered badly - usually bad
versions of his life story from the first five pages of the Pavan
Verma text. We definitely have to do something about it. There was
little evidence of reading Naim for Ghalib. Infact i found that Naim
was used much more for the Delhi College answer

The Ralph Russell article, that amrita mentions should be a good
addition. We should add it to the suplementary reading list. I have
another OUP volume on Ghalib edited by Russell and Khurshiul Isalm
(Ghalib: Life and letters), but i think that's too detailed.

I also came across another volume on the Delhi College from OUP. It is
edited by Margrit Pernau (The Delhi College:Traditional Elites, the
Colonial State, and Education before 1857) The collection has an
article by C.M. Naim on the Persian works of Shaikh Imam Baksh Sabbai
and the relationship that subsisted between him, Ghalib and Mohammad
Husain Azad, the trio that contributed substantially to the vitality
of Delhi culture. Maybe we can use this too for the Literary cultures
of Delhi rubric. I admit that i have just glanced through the volume
and not read the article - so i cannot as yet comment on how good it
is. Will do so when i get my hands on the book, and write back to the
list.

For the pre-1857 period, i think that the Narayani Gupta reading
should be supplemented by another one. Contrary to Amrita's
experience, i found that quite a hash had been made of Gupta's text
by the students. And even when i was teaching, many students had
problems with it. Pavan Verma's 2nd chapter (A City of Good Living)
from Ghalib came in handy. Has anybody found any other text?

More later. Please respond with your problems and suggestions.

if you know friends who teach the paper and are not on the list,
please tell them to mail me , or the list with request for
subscription. More members will definitely make for a livelier forum.

Best

Saumya

On 7/14/07, Amrita Tulika <amr...@bol.net.in> wrote:

[chitra joshi]

Sorry I have not responded. The suggestions about the readings etc sound good. Perhaps we should hold a meeting sometime in August.

 

One query. From what I remember from one of the meetings, some students/ teachers had translated some of the prescribed readings into Hindi. Would it be possible to make photocopies of these translated text available for informal circulation?

 

 

Chitra

 

[prabha rani]

Hi Chitra,

yes, I had translated some articles last year. But can't say about its
quality. My students had (Hindi Hons students) had kind of improved upon it
when I gave it to them. I will bring it to the meeting that you propose to
have in August.

prabha

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