LOYOLA COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS), CHENNAI – 600 034

M.A. DEGREE EXAMINATION – ENGLISH LITERATURE

FIRST SEMESTER – APRIL 2004

EL 1801/LE 719 – INDIAN LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

Date       : 15.04.04                                                                                                                  Max  : 100 marks

Duration : 9 – 12 noon                                                                                                                         Hours: 3 hrs

1. Answer the following in about 50 words each with interpretations of the given lines. (10 x 2 = 20 marks)
2. The true poet suffers from aphasia.
3. After twenty hours

It lost its sting

3. Time lifts the curtain unawares,

And sorrow looks into her face

4. I am my father now.
5. Nothing stays out; daughters

Get married to short lived idiots.

6. And don’t I do my puja properly, Go on

Tell me. I bathe every morning and then

I sit here for my puja, Don’t I

7. She dared threaten me! What can she do to me?

I am a good woman. Right’s on my side?

I’ve always been virtuous. She can’t do a thing to me.

8. It’s more or less the same crowd that

Patronises these places and my quarrel

With it is that it is merely culture –

Consuming, not culture – learning

9. The regional cultures have hardly any interest in one

another and are more involved in their own identity questions

Than in those of an all – India culture.

10. I think time has turned and we must now copy some of the ways

of the Christians  in order to propagate our religion among the Buddhist people.

1. Answer five of the following in about 150 words each:             (5 x 8 = 40 marks)
2. What makes Kamala Das come down so hard on the world of males.
3. Give a list of the observations that Ramanujam makes about the traditional home.
4. Why, according to Parthasarathy has, poetry going commercial?
5. What universal truth does the Pardha Nashin discover in her own life?
6. Contrast the characters of Laksmi and champa?
7. Evam Indrajit is a typical Indian play. Justify this statement.
8. Comment on the chief character of the

III. Write an essay on one of the following in about 400 words:                                         (1 x 20 = 20 marks)

18. Show that Tagore’s’ poem ‘The Child’ moves from darkness to light.
19. Vijay Tendulkar is preoccupied with the problems of the middle class in his play Sakharam, the Binder. Explain
20. Mulk Raj Anand is a compassionate writer. Discuss this from the Untouchable. Is he the voice of the novelist?

-2-

1. Attempt any ONE of the following in about 400 words. (1 x 20 = 20 marks)
2. What are Khushwant Sing’s musings on India?
3. Show how Toru Dutt uses nature as a back drop for portraying human emotions
4. Explore the historical events that Sri Aurobindo has incorporated in the poem ‘The Tiger and the Deer’.
5. Bring out the socio-political concerns expressed by Henry Derzio in ‘The Harp of India’.
6. Make a study of R.K. Narayan as a novelist.
7. Describe the kind of anguish that you perceive in Anita Desai’s ‘Voices in the lily’
8. Discuss the use of symbols in Kamala Markandaya’s ‘A Handful of Rice’.
9. Examine the essential features that make Indian Writing in English singular

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LOYOLA COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS), CHENNAI – 600 034

M.A DEGREE EXAMINATION – ENGLISH LITERATURE

I SEMESTER – NOV. 2004

EL 1801 – INDIAN LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

Date        : 27.10.04                                                                             Max      : 100 marks

Duration : 9 – 12 noon                                                                                    Hours    : 3 hrs

1. Answer the following in about 50 words each with interpretations of the given lines.

(10 x 2 = 20 marks)

1. An unexpected November

shut the door in my face:

2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Call

Him not by any name, he is every man

3. Things come in every day

to lose themselves among other things

lost long ago among

other things lost long ago

4. O Master of the Birds, grant sanctuary and shelter

Also to a homing bird that bears a broken wing

5. The old man from the East murmurs to himself: “I have seen!”

6. Mine is no ordinary appetite.

7. A link based on a need. The need ended. the link snapped.

8. If I hadn’t tasted the fruit of knowledge

I could have gone on living in this paradise

of your blessed society of rules. Now I can

only batter my head against the wall.

9. Communists get quick results because when you

adopt the means of annihilating men, they do

not remain to oppose you.

10. All talk of national integration has so far proved to be an exercise in futility

1. Answer five of the following in about 150-200 words each: (5 x 8 = 40 marks)

11. Narrate the peculiar experiences that Kamala Das encountered in those early formative years of her life

12. How does Sarojini Naidu view the evanescence of youth and beauty in ‘The Purdah Nashin’

13. What is the grouse that Parthasarathy has against his fellow poets?
14. Identify the major conflict found in the poem ‘The Night of the Scorpion’.
15. Symbolism in Sakharam, the Binder
16. Evan Indrajit is the best example of experimental theatre
17. Mulk Raj Anand speaks through Bakha, the chief character of The Untoucheable:

III. Write an essay on ONE of the following in about 400 words:                    (1 x 20 = 20 marks)

18. Illustrate how Parthasarathy and Ramanujar deal with the subject of Indian culture and tradition.

19. Vijay Tendulkar’s preoccupation with the middle class problems pervade the play Sakharam, the Binder

20. Is there a solution to the problem of Untouchability in the novel The Untouchable.?

21. Depict the picture of India and Indian culture from the two prose pieces prescribed for study.

1. Attempt any ONE of the following in about 400 words. (1 x 20 = 20 marks)

22. Discuss Toru Dutt’s ‘Our Casuarina Tree’ as a poem that embraces the past, the present and the future.

23. Bring out the symbolic, spiritual and mystical nature of Aurobindo’s ‘ ‘Rose of God’.
24. K. Narayan is the best among the Indian English novelists. Explain through the novel ‘The Financial Expert.’

25. “Voices in the city” echoes the modern generation.

26. Kamala Markandaya expresses the powerful reality of poverty through ‘A Handful of Rice.’

27. ‘Train to Pakistan’ is a positive novel.
28. Describe the features of Indian Writing in English citing examples from the texts you have studied.

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             LOYOLA COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS), CHENNAI – 600 034

M.A. DEGREE EXAMINATION – ENGLISH LITERATURE

FIRST SEMESTER – APRIL 2006

                                             EL 1801 – INDIAN LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

Date & Time : 27-04-2006/1.00-4.00 P.M.   Dept. No.                                                       Max. : 100 Marks

1. Answer the following in about 50 words each with interpretations of the given lines (10 x 2 = 20 marks)

1. After twenty hours

It lost its sting

2. The summer begins to pall
3. O Master of the birds, grant sanctuary and shelter

Also to a homing bird that bars a broken wing.

4. I am my father now
5. Nothing stays out, daughters

Get married to short lived idots

6. The world! The people around us! What you call society
7. I am talking of a culture which is divorced from its educational institutions.
8. “There is not trouble when the mind is converted and the thing is permanent”.
9. Mine is no ordinary appetite.
10. All talk of national integration has so far proved to be an exercise in futility.

1. Answer FIVE of the following in about 150 words each (5 x 8 = 40 marks)

11. Give a list of the observations that Ramanujan makes about the traditional home.
12. What universal truth does the Pardha Naslin discover almost suddenly?
13. According to Parthasarathy what would good poetry consist of? What are his suggestions?
14. Mention Kamala Das ‘views on what she calls a ‘male-dominated society’.
15. How wholesome is characterization in ’Evam Indrajit?
16. Discuss the subjects of pathos and alienation ‘untouchable’.
17. Explain the place for symbolism in Sakharam, the Binder.
18. How common are Buddhism and Communism according to Ambedkar?

• Write an essay on ONE of the following in about 400 words

(1 x 20 = 20 marks)

19. Bring out the most important features that you find in Sarojini Naidu’s Poetry.
20. What is the message conveyed in the novel ‘The untouchable’?

1. Attempt any ONE of the following in about 400 words ( 1 x 20 = 20 marks)
2. How relevant is Karnad’s ‘Tughlaq’ to out modern times?
3. Estimate R.K. Narayan’s contributions to literature. Give examples.
4. Comment on the women characters in ‘A Handful of Rice’.
5. How does Toru Dutt blend the personal, the romantic and the sentimental aspects in Ger poetry?
6. Show how vividly the novelist brings out the trauma of partition in ‘Train to Pakistan’.
7. Bring out the features of Indian writing in English advancing examples from the prescribed texts.

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                        LOYOLA COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS), CHENNAI – 600 034

M.A. DEGREE EXAMINATION – ENGLISH LITERATURE

FIRST SEMESTER – NOV 2006

EL 1801 – INDIAN LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

Date & Time : 07-11-2006/1.00-4.00     Dept. No.                                                       Max. : 100 Marks

PART – A

1. Answer the following in 50 words each: (10 x 3 = 30 marks)

1. The peasants came like swarms of flies

and bugged the name of god a hundred times to paralyse the Evil One.

• Bring out the importance of the figures of speech in these lines.

1. ‘The man of action finds his god in fine, the man of feeling in the heart, and the feeble – minded in the idol, but the strong in spirit find God everywhere?”  The seas see the Supreme in the self, and not in images.

• What does the author try to prove here?

1. And as you look on, the cracks that began around her eyes spread beyond here skin.

• Comment on the significance of these lines.

1. cauvery flows in my veins

chamundi hills rise in my mind with stars afloat

• What compels the poet to say so?

1. You are all lowering, friend,

What sweetness is in Miss Pushpa.

• Consider the Indianism in the language used here.

1. “The fall, the failure does matter ….

But the reason assigned is not the true one”

• What is the true reason then?

1. “Both show an increasing return to the Indian Spirit in fresh forms”

• What does the word both refer to?

1. “Not because of its magnificence Dear is the Casuarinas to my soul”

• Any other reason you can give for the Casuarina to be dear.

1. “have a way of finding their way back with many re-directions to wrong addresses and red ink marks”

• Comment on ‘redirections to wrong addresses’

1. “Being  the burning type

he burned properly

at the cremation”

• Explain to show the two literary elements in the lines.

PART – B

1. Answer any EIGHT of the following in 150 words each: (8 x 5 = 40 marks)

1. Write a critique of The Guide.
2. How does Kushwant Singh sketch his characters in ‘Train to Pakistan’?
3. Comment on the portrayal of Indian bureaucracy in English, August.
4. Discuss the theme of Mukta Dhara.
5. How does Sharat Chandra picture India abroad?
6. What are Manu’s views on the status and duty of Indian women?
7. What are the fences India created for protection and how did she break them down for expansion?  According to shir. Aurobindo.
8. Show how Raja Rao infuses his native emotions into an alien English language and make Kanthapura enlarge the frontiers of human consciousness.
9. Discuss ‘Tughlag’ as a political allegory.
10. Mention some of the concerns of Mulk Raj Anand in ‘The untouchable’

PART – C

III. Answer any TWO of the following in 400 words each:                   (2 x 15 = 30 marks)

1. Enumerate the themes and concerns in the study of Indian Writing in English.  Give examples.
2. a) How does Radhakrishnan portray Hinduism to the world in ‘The Hindu View of life’?

OR

b} Discuss the themes of Indian poetry in English as seen from the poems prescribed for

your study.

1. Compare the prescribed poems of Toru Dutt and state how The Lotus is more than potential, the demonstrable working of a genius.
2. A.K. Ramanujan’s poems explore the determined search for the roots accentuated by the circumstances of his expatriation – Discuss.

OR

When will India rise to the height of her opportunity according to Sri. Aurobindo, the

visionary?

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