THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR

A word on actor Irfan Khan's passing away: He is one of my favourite actors since childhood. I grew up watching such legendary series in Doordarshan those days like The Great Maratha. Irfan's role as Najeeb Khan was iconic. That was the early days of his career and my sensibilities as an audience or spectator. Through Pan Singh Tomar, Jurassik World and many other movies, he kept amazing me. Today, I heard about his death while working on a short story for a reading app named Pratilipi. The title of the story was "The Magician who Vanished". Just as I finished the story, I looked up from my word file to go through some WhatsApp messages and found the status on one of my friend's number. Perhaps the story "The Magician who Vanished" is about Irfan Khan. In the story, a father passes away and the son is having difficulty accepting his death. The son blames himself for his father's death. Right then, someone comes along an...

Dr Kay Scarpetta works as a chief medical examiner in Virginia, USA. Her job is to inspect dead bodies. Bodies are brought to her for postmortem analysis. They arrive after a death sentence, murder, or accident. Her office is practically in a morgue.  Cruel and Unusual  is written by Patricia Cornwell. This novel deals with the cases attended by Dr Kay Scarpetta. A mere description of the work Dr Scarpetta does in the morgue is a thriller in its own right. It has its mystery too. A lot of dissection and description of human anatomy churns one’s stomach.  My attention was hooked from the beginning. I wanted to see how this novel branches out to be a detective-fiction. I had read in a review that is the best detection fiction since Sherlock Holmes. That’s a huge credit. I am not a Sherlock Holmes fan. I had stopped reading detective fiction ever since I left high school. During those days, I used to dream about writing books. Now I write books. The difference...

Notes to Core Course II Semester, B A English, Kannur University. Name of Course:  Academic Writing, Methodology and Research Project Code: 2B02 ENG Prescribed Text: Methodology of Humanities and Academic Writing 6. What is an argument in college writing assignments?  An argument means a carefully arranged and supported presentation of a viewpoint. Its purpose is not so much to win the argument as to earn your audience's consideration (and even approval) of your perspective. It's similar to presenting a case in a court. The arguments made in a court should be supported by evidence to convince the judge or jury.  7. How to pick a topic for writing assignments?  In order to pick a topic for writing assignments, one has to look for gaps, puzzling items, things that confuse or connections one sees. It is also important to state the topic as a clear and interesting question. It is not necessary to write this statement or question at the starti...

Notes to Core Course II Semester, B A English, Kannur University. Name of Course:  Academic Writing, Methodology and Research Project Code: 2B02 ENG Prescribed Text: Methodology of Humanities and Academic Writing Module IV What is "Academic" Writing? Comprehension Questions 1. What is academic writing? Academic writing is writing in college. Academic writing is always a form of evaluation that asks you to demonstrate knowledge and show proficiency with certain disciplinary skills of thinking, interpreting, and presenting. According to Lee Ann Carrol, academic writing requires knowledge of research skills, ability to read complex texts, understanding of key disciplinary concepts, and strategies for synthesizing, analyzing, and responding critically to new information, usually within a limited time frame.   2. Identify the three characteristics of academic writing.  As per the research conducted by Chriss Thaiss and Terri Zawacki at ...

Notes to Core Course II Semester, B A English, Kannur University. Name of Course:  Academic Writing, Methodology and Research Project Code: 2B02 ENG Prescribed Text: Methodology of Humanities and Academic Writing Course Outcomes Understand and apply the nuances of academic writing Understand the various methodological as well as epistemological aspects of literary studies Familiarise with the approaches to literature Choose a tentative topic for the research project to be submitted in semester six. Module - IV Academic Writing IV. What is "Academic" Writing? Introduction: The Academic Writing Task Decoding College Writing Assignments The Format Of The Academic Essay V. Writing a Research Paper in Literary Studies First Steps Writing Your Paper Plagiarism Where to begin? What to do?            Hi everyone, it's been a long time since we haven't had a chance to meet and greet each other through this blo...

With Ash on Their Faces is a work of nonfiction. Journalist Cathy Otten is the author of the book. Otten's work in the Middle East, especially around Syria, Iraq, and the Kurd areas form a strong foundation for this book. The book focuses on the life and culture of Yezidis in the Sinjar region. The exploration that we see in the book unravels a painful narrative as the chapters progress. The first few chapters largely carry out an attempt to locate the locale of action in the book. The chapters that mark the middle part of the book carry out the function of exploring what the title offers. The plight of Yezidi women in the wake of the attack of ISIS is the major concern of Otten.              The geographical locale where the atrocities of ISIS are committed is northern Iraq. With Ash on Their Faces is written with a journalistic sensibility. Sentimentality is kept at bay while narrating the heartbreaking experi...

When the first time I heard the term Mega Floods, I was in the middle of packing my breakfast. The television set was blaring news about the nonstop raining in Kerala and the water that was unstoppable. Most of the rivers were overflowing. Villages and cities were underwater. My house was situated near the sloping-side of a plateau. I feared everything. I was afraid of every drop of rain that fell on our land. The flood wasn't going to affect us. But landslides could kill us all. This was in the year 2018.  Two years later, in 2020, I was teaching a class of forty students about Ecosystem. My subject was English. The course I was teaching was the English Common Course titled Readings on Life and Nature . The class was going strong. Everyone was engrossed in the text. That was a rare happening. I was telling them about the relationship between the non-living and the living elements of nature or ecosystem. Strangely, students were interested in knowing about nature, as if...

The title of this novel would surely remind of you Tony Morrison's classic, the Bluest Eye. The themes discussed in the novel are entirely within the Indian context. The book does not have any connection with Tony Morrison's book. However, the author has created a purpose for those words to appear in the title of the book. The title closely reflects the luring mystery in the plot. The Girl with Blue Eyes is the story of Armaan. He falls in love with a girl named Tanisha. He lives with a commonsensical logic that love happens only once. The idea is soon to change. Armaan realizes that he has another side to him. This happened when he encounters the girl with blue eyes. This encounter is not just an ordinary one. Armaan falls victim to an accident. The image of the girl with blue eyes flashes in front of his eyes. The mysterious girl with blue eyes becomes Armaan's single obsession. Months later, he meets the same girl in real life. He realizes that his life and h...

Writing a review of a book one has loved deeply is difficult. This is one of the matters, which the unsung heroes of book reviewers often unite upon.  Sapiens  is one such book. I could click a picture of the cover of the book, with its blackened human thumb impression and multi-colour typesetting on the cover with a white background, post this picture on various social media pages. However, that does not mean I reviewed it. For me, to be able to articulate the many nuances of the book is a herculean task. To make my job easier, therefore, I'd like to point out some of the important points and areas in the book.  Sapiens  is a nonfiction book about the origin and growth of the human species.  Sapiens underscores the Cognitive Revolution as the decisive geological/biological event that carved out a trajectory for Homo sapiens. The author raises several arguments to suggest that an animal of no special importance became a geological force 1500 years ag...