Meet Again?

[saumya gupta]

Dear Friends
In the last, and only meeting that we have has as a group, we decided
that we will meet once again in the second term to thrash out things
like question-papers, translations etc. Any suggestions when we can meet?

saumya

[chitra joshi]

Dear Saumya

 

For me the options seem few - we could meet around thurs -fri. In case you are meeting after that I could mail some questions. Will be away all of the foll week and wont be back till 21st Dec

 

chitra

[Srimanjari]

Dear Saumya,

 

As Chitra says, the options are few, but we definitely need to meet at the earliest.

Srimanjari

[Amrita Tulika]

Dear Saumya,
Thanks for the reminder.
Can we meet this Friday, Dec 7 at 2.30 PM?

Amrita

[Shahid Amin]

Dear Saumya/Amrita,
Friday is the 8th December. Please clarify, and Saumya/Anubhuti pl. inform Laxman Jain by phone.
I shall try and make it: you cd. use one of the romms in the Dept.s.
Once the date is firmed kidly give a ring to the office: 27 66 66 59, saying that the Delhi groups meets at that time; leav a message for Prof. Sahu HOD.
shahid

[Srimanjari]

Dear Saumya,

 

11 Dec. seems more suitable.

Sri

 

On 12/2/06, saumya gupta <saumya.sa...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Amrita Tulika]

Dear Srimanjari,

 

I made a mistake. Friday is 8th of december. You would prefer Dec. 11. If we have a meeting on the 11th Chitra won't be there. What do you suggest?

 

Amrita

[archana verma]

Dear Saumya

Friday 8th December is not suitable for the meeting. December 11 at 2.30 p.m. is fine.

Archana Verma

Shahid Amin <amin....@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Anubhuti Maurya]

Dear Saumya,

December 11th, 3.00 pm is a far more convenient  time, but 2.30  can be managed. please do inform.

anubhuti

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[Amrita Tulika]

Dear friends,

Anubhuti, Archana, Srimanjari, and Rajiv prefer Dec. 11, Monday as a likely
date for the meeting. I guess we have to go along with that. We will miss
Chitra's presence. We can't help it. With me as the co- ordinator, things
will only happen last minute!

So, we meet dec. 11, Monday, 2.30 PM in one of the rooms in the Univ.
Department. Please confirm so that I can leave a message with the Dept.
office. Saumya, please call Lakshman Jain. I do not have his phone no.

I discovered a wonderful book on Imperial Delhi in the Central Reference
Library, Delhi Univ. It will considerably lessen the pain of going through
Irving's labyrinthine discussion on Imperial Architecture and the new city.
We can include that in our reading list.

Please make a set of questions for the paper and bring it along on Monday.
That, I think, is the most urgent of all because Jan. test is coming up and
we need to pool in our resources.

Amrita

----- Original Message -----
From: "saumya gupta" <saumya.sa...@gmail.com>
To: <moder...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 02, 2006 12:15 AM
Subject: Meet Again?

>

[Amrita Tulika]

Dear Friends,

It is the end of the session, a good time for a recap. I suggest that we
pool in our ideas and share our experiences regarding the teaching of the
paper. I start by sharing my own.
I think a trip to at least one of the sites we discuss while teaching the
paper is a
must. One could choose from among the following: Flag Staff Tower,
Chauburja, Bara Hindu Rao, and Mutiny Memorial can be done in one trip.
Kashmiri Gate, St. James' Church etc. would constitute another trip. A visit
to the Red Fort is again extremely important because of Nayanjot's article.
Rashtrapati Bhavan and Central Secretariat is another possible destination.
I know for those of us teaching in north campus, it is easy to organise
these trips. For other colleges it is difficult- transportation and other
problems if the class is big. Still, it is worth it since even one trip can
make teaching so much fun and so much easier. I took my students to Flag
Staff, Mutiny Memorial etc. and it turned out to be a highly successful
trip, what with Dr. David Baker accompanying us as a resource person! It was
great fun. In fact, if any of you want to talk to him about how to organise
such trips, he will be more than willing to share his thoughts with you(
that's what I think! Please let me talk to him to make sure he is open to a
suggestion like this.)Just an aside, Dr. Baker really liked the Modern Delhi
folder. He thought this was an excellent collection and he bought a copy as
soon as I showed it to him. Another thought. India Habitat Centre organises
walks to historical sites. Any one can go and register at the reception desk
in order to join in. I remember IHC organised one to Rashtrapati Bhavan in
Jan- Feb this year. You get to know about these events thru the newspaper.

This is the 150th year of 1857. Alkazi Foundation put up an exhibition of
photographs of the Mutiny/ Revolt in India International Centre in the first
fortnight of January. They are going to repeat it at different locations
thru the year. Keep a look out for it and take your students there. Trust
me, these could be the most enjoyable ways to teach the paper. It is a good
paper. Students and teachers are not burdened with too much reading
material. The pace is comfortable and class room teaching can be made more
effective if we integrate these things into our teaching schedule. In fact
some of this can serve as material for students' projects in the third term.

Further, something needs to be done about the Ghalib topic. The only
question we can think of right now is Ghalib's Delhi (Naim's article). A
book or an
article that gives us a feel for Ghalib's poetry is a must. Is there an
Oxford companion to Ghalib? If so, it should be added to the reading list.

I have not been able to do very much about the last topic, ' Layers of
memory and history'. I remember having seen some interesting articles/
reports in Times of India but I did not keep a copy. I guess newspapers are
the best source. In case you subscribe to Hindu or HT please keep a look out
for articles on historical sites and what's happening to them now. However,
I did use Narayani's introduction to Percival Spear's Delhi and its
Monuments for teaching this topic and it did help. I think a short piece on
Rome or Paris charting the course of urbanization and its impact on the
historic cities may be of help. Or is it too ambitious?

We need books which have good photographs. Unfortunately, Beato's Delhi,
which is indispensable for the course, is out of print. As I suggested
earlier, Andreas Volwahsen's Imperial Delhi is an excellent book for the
topic on New Delhi Imperial Architecture. Its available in Centeral
Reference Library, Delhi University. I photocooied four chapters from this
book. I can place it at Arun's Thesis if you want. I came across two more
books for this topic, Aman Nath's Dome Over India and H. Y. Sharada Prasad's
Rashtrapati Bhavan: The Story of the President's House, a publication's
division book. Both have good photographs. I have not gone through the text.
Hope to hear from you.

Amrita.

[Srimanjari]

Dear Amrita,

You are right, visits to various historical parts/monuments of the city is indeed one of the ways of making this paper interesting. I am sure the trip to the Flag Staff Tower along with Dr. Baker was an eye opener for the students. I am aware of the IHC walks and am quite keen to join them.

 I organised a film show on Shahjahanabad and a visit to 'Old Delhi' - which included a walk through different parts of Red Fort, Chandni Chouk and some of the galis and kuchas' of this part of the city. We did this walk with Sohail Hashmi.The walk through the galis and up some of the old houses was done to enable the students to imagine how difficult it would have been for the British Indian forces to quell the uprising of 1857.

Thanks for mentioning some of the suggested readings - still to catch up on those!

Bye, Srimanjari