Poe’s Poem.

Annabel Lee

 

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thoughtThan to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,

In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thoughtThan to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen cameAnd bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the seaCan ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Honestly, I’m here for the love and the water.

Social Justice with Kancha Ilaiah.

Why am I not a Hindu.

As the Xavier hall was filling up. We, like most other students in the hall,
avoided the first couple of rows and occupy the middle rows. As students of Developmental Journalism, this talk was made compulsory for us.
We were asked to read the first chapter of Why I Am Not A Hindu by Kancha Ilaiah before walking into this talk.

                                                     Academics Cry Halt to Hounding of Kancha Ilaiah by Brahminical Bodies, Police
It was scheduled to begin at 4:30PM but eventually began a half hour later. During the wait, the mood in the hall was rather jovial for talk on social justice.
I’d attribute that to the shady music they played in the background. Kudos to the DJ for his peculiar tracks.
As Professor Ilaiah walked into the hall with Fr. Principal, there was a loud round of applause followed by whistles.
Ah, BSW is here, I thought. The Professor and the Principal were joined by Professor Kiran Jeevan and Father Denzil.
With Fr. Denzil doing the introduction for the man, he was welcomed with an embrace, a smile and shawl from our Principal.
I’d noticed that he’d picked up a call while on stage.
About the talk.
As I walked to the podium and adjusted the mic, I wondered if this was how I’d pictured him while reading Why I Am Not A Hindu.
It was very different. Professor Ilaiah was a short man with hair as white as it can get.
He was dressed in semi-formal attire and reminded me a lot of my grand uncle — one of the twins. They even had a similar walk. He was born in 1952 in what is now the Telangana region into a family of sheepherders. He had an MPhil and an MA to his credit.
I shall not use this space to state the things the Professor said, but rather try to bring to light what I felt as someone listening to the man for the first time.
I’d liked what I’d read in the first chapter of his book, so I was eager to listen what he had to say.  The first half of the lecture was impressive– Professor Ilaiah brought forth facts that were completely unknown to most of us except for Professor Etienne Rassendren, who was sitting on the panel for the day.
He wove together stories and facts from as far back as the invasion of the India by the Aryans, to things from as recent as new Education Policy being brought into effect by the Modi government. I’d followed everything he’d said so far, about when the debate of equality was a whole began to the differences between dharma and dhaama.
“Dharma refers to the division of society into the four varnas”, he said.
“The status of women and shhudras was the same.” Come to think of it, I’d never placed the concept of caste and the discrimination against women on the same pedestal,
for some reason. It was now beginning to dawn on me the sheer magnitude of oppression a woman from the shhudra community had to face.

Personal issues with the talk

This issues I had with the talk all arose out of what was said during the latter half. As immature as I may begin to sound, I think my biggest issue was with the
man’s immaturity. There were many occasions when the discussion was pulled in one direction and then the other, often leaving me struggling to keep up.
Sitting for the talk was like sitting in a boat on choppy waters. I think the tide in this context was impulsion and driven primary by the urge to satisfy a crowd;
the crowd loved it, alright. “The source of dirt in India is Indian men.” Well, I agreed, but things were a little too random at this point in time.
Statements having phrases like, “cow-coloured hair” or “Indians want contrast” and “red and white colour, what we call turmeric colour”, I just could not ignore after a certain point in time. His facts were also beginning to feel stretched. The day after the talk, I argued this out with a friend, sitting in front of the canteen, coffee in hand.

I think that was when it hit me — my main issue was possibly not his. Immaturity, but his poor articulation in terms of speech. When Professor Etienne summed it all
up at the end of the talk, things just seemed so much more profound. In class the same day, we were told that almost nothing about the talk was random. It was all practised and delivered many times before. But what about social justice? Were we not there to talk about that and not the finer aspects of equality itself, peppered by personal observations on rather random topics? After much conversation about the man and the talk, I was told that Professor Ilaiah didn’t always get his facts straight. What he did, he did to offer an alternative discourse; albeit this particular discourse was far-fetched enough to attract a fair share of attention and thus, not be quashed by the dominant discourse and
oppressors. He used it as a platform to bring up a variety of issues in the short span of time given to him, in the hope that the members of the audience would make
something of it. He did make some really good points like the one about labor as life and leaser as life. It got me thinking on a very different plain.
If only he had the voice of Professor Etienne and his ability to string together an argument.

                                                                                                         Author Kanchha Ilaiah’s book-Why I am not a hindu.