Talk by Aijaz Ahmad at LSR

On 30th January, 2010, the students and teachers of Lady Shri Ram College had the privilege of listening to two of the Big Names in the tentative field of 'Indian Literature'. Indeed, as Professor Alok Rai and Professor Aijaz Ahmad walked down the aisle of the auditorium, those seated could feel that greatness was passing.

Professor Alok Rai began with a witty and lucid discussion of Professor Ahmad's essay "'Indian Literature' - Notes Towards the Definition of a Category". Students, a bit nervous in such an august gathering, were completely won over by Professor Rai's panache, especially when he touched upon the predicament of the English Professor - positioned as she is, between "poignancy and absurdity".

Professor Ahmad discussed, not only the problematics of the category of 'Indian Literature', but also translations and role of the state in education. Professor Ahmad spoke of how political boundaries were perhaps not the best means of defining a literature, as what could be researched under the rubric of "Indian Literature' would find commonalities with the literatures of Iran, Bangladesh and most of South Asia. The talk also emphasized the need to consider the performative and oral aspects of south Asian literature, without making museum pieces of these traditions.

Students in the  English Literature Bachelors' course have to engage, and sometimes grapple, with translations in all three years of their course. Professor Ahmad's discussion of how there needed to be more translations from and into adjacent languages, as well as how translation enriched the literature of the language that received the translation, thus found resonance with the listeners. Professor Ahmad also shared his experience of being the first person to introduce the comma, colon and other 'new' punctuation marks to an Urdu printing press - in the context of languages were dynamic and needed to be given the space to evolve.

When asked about where the institutions that would support work in the field of 'Indian Literature' would be located, Professor Ahmad said that he believed in state funding in education, and was rather suspicious of the corporatization of education. At his saying this, many faces in the audience wore looks ranging from those of vindication to those of undisguised triumph.

As a final year student of the Eng Lit course, the session turned out to be more than just putting a face to one of the Hallowed Names read in the Theory course. Facetiousness aside, the talks actually allowed me to gain a perspective on the papers and syllabus that all of us enrolled in this course encounter, and are sometimes absorbed by.

~ Akshi Singh