KU UG English Sem 3 all summaries
Unit 1
Achieving Gender Equality in India:
What Works, and What Doesn't
Smriti Sharma.
How does Smriti Sharma bring home the idea of female empowerment and gender equality in her essay? ( KU December 2023)
video lesson తెలుగు లో
About the writer.
Smriti Sharma is a senior lecturer (associate professor) in economics at Newcastle University in England. She is also a research affiliate at the Institute of Labor Economics and a fellow at the Global Labor Organization (GLO). She was previously a research fellow at UNU-WIDER in Helsinki, Finland.
Her fields of specialization are development economics, labor economics, and behavioral economics. Within these fields, she has three areas of interest: (i) education, skills, and labor markets; (ii) the political economy of development; and (iii) caste and gender-based disadvantage and discrimination. Her work focuses mainly on India and Vietnam.
This article was published on November 8, 2016 on the website conversation.com.This is the first of a series of articles in partnership with UNU-WIDER and EconFilms on responding to crises worldwide.
In this article, she talks about gender disparity in Indian society despite growth in GDP.
Despite rapid economic growth, India's progress towards gender equality, as measured by the Gender Development Index(GDI), is disappointing.
A recent survey found a 27℅ gender pay gap in white collar jobs. The writer observes the disturbing upward trend in crimes against women such as rapes, dowry deaths, and honor killings.
A preference for sons.
In Indian society, patrilineality and patrilocality instill a cultural preference for sons. Indian parents prefer sons because they see them as caregivers in old age. The Dowry System is another institution that disempowers women. Dowry-related violence against women by their husbands and in-laws is on the rise across all socioeconomic classes. These practices motivate parents not to have girls as children or to invest less in girls' health and education.
Despite India's ban on sex determination, there were 919 girls under the age of six for every 1000 boys in 2011.
Affirmative action
Though India has experienced economic growth, gender disparities persist. India needs policy initiatives to empower women. The writer states that one-third of reservations for women (33 Percent) in local bodies have shown good results. According to policy evaluations, women are more confident in reporting crimes against them than earlier in villages led by women leaders. Equality in land inheritance rights between sons and daughters got mixed responses. Improvements in labour market prospects also have the potential to empower women.
Training and recruiting young women from rural areas for factory-based jobs in cities provides economic independence and social autonomy.
Getting to Parity.
The writer opines that India needs more coordinating efforts at local and national levels, as well as by the private sector, to bring women to parity with men, and educating Indian children from an early age about the importance of gender equality is a significant step in that direction.
Video lesson explained in English
For full article, plz visit
https://theconversation.com/achieving-gender-equality-in-india-what-works-and-what-doesnt-67189
Smriti Sharma video
They Shut me up in Prose
Emily Dickinson
They shut me up in Prose –
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet –
Because they liked me “still” –
Still! Could themself have peeped –
And seen my Brain – go round –
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason – in the Pound –
Himself has but to will
And easy as a Star
Look down opon Captivity –
And laugh – No more have I –
They shut me up in Prose" by Emily Dickinson explores how people can find freedom through their imaginations and, by extension, through writing poetry. Discuss.(KU December 2023)
About the poet.
About the poem
Unit 2
1) Dalit Child Bride to $112 Million CEO:The Wonder Story of Kalpana Saroj,
Rakhi Chakrabortty.
Kalpana Saroj is an object lesson as a female role model. Explain.(KU December 2023)
About the author
Rakhi Chakraborty is an independent journalist and sustainability activist. She blogs at zerowasteindian.com
Read more at: https://yourstory.com/author/rakhi-chakrabortyAbout the text
for the full text, click the link below
https://yourstory.com/smbstory/dalit-child-bride-kalpana-saroj
The present lesson is a biography of Kalpana Saroj, CEO of Kamani Tubes, with personal assets worth $112 million. She was born in Vidarbha to a police constable. She had three sisters and two brothers. The parents of neighborhood children did not allow her to play with their children in the quarters because she belongs to the Dalit community. .She was shocked by the behavior of the faculty towards her because she was prevented from participating in extracurricular activities at school. She was married off in her seventh class.
Child Marriage.
Though her father was not a very educated man, he wanted her to complete her education. Bowing to the community's and extended family's pressure, he arranged her marriage at the age of twelve.
Married life
She was responsible for all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry for ten
people. Her in-laws abused her mentally and physically. Her father found her as
a walking corpse after six months when he came to see her.
Walk with shame.
Her father brought her back home. The community and society accused her of
bringing shame upon her family. She didn’t want to be a burden to her father.
Due to her lack of education or age, she was rejected for the posts of
constable, nurse, and even military.
A second chance
She took the poison to kill herself, but she got a second chance at life.
After this incident, she felt strong, recharged, and empowered. She decided to
move forward in her life.
A New life
She started a new life in Mumbai by doing tailoring work. Her father lost his job. Her parents and siblings joined her in a cramped room.
The tragedy that made me an entrepreneur.
She realised that life without money is useless, when her youngest sister needed
treatment.
Getting started.
Her circumstances gradually improved, after she started a small furniture business
with a govt loan.
Sizing oppurtunities
She took two years to pay off her loan. While she was looking for new business opportunities, she came across a proprietor who sold her litigation-locked land. She fought a legal battle for two years, and at last, with the help of a partner, she established a furniture and real estate business.
The strange case of Kamani Tubes
After Ramjibhai Kamani, the founder of Kamani Tubes, died, a dispute over
ownership arose between his sons and the workers. The Supreme Court transferred
ownership from the legal heirs to the workers union. However, the company faced
imminent closure due to the ongoing struggle for supremacy between the two
unions. She took over the company at the workers' request.
Battle
In 2000, she became the president of the company's board. She pleaded with the
then finance minister to waive off the penalty and interest so that the company
could not go into liquidation. After much consultation with banks, the finance
minister forgave the penalty and interest amount, as well as deduct 25% from
the principle amount. The court transferred ownership of Kamini tubes to Kalpana
Saroj on condition of paying bank loans within 7 years. She settled all the
financial issues and debts soon. She moved the factory to Wada, where she
acquired seven acres of land.
Saroj's narrative is truly inspirational, spanning from the slums of Mumbai to the glittering lights of India's corporate world. The story of Kalpana Saroj's rise from poverty to fortune is really amazing. In 2013, she received the Padma Shri for Trade and Industry.
2) The Kitchen - Vimala
1. The poem "The Kitchen" by Vimala defends individuality and demands a respectful identity for homemakers. Justify. (KU December 2023)
I remember the kitchen's
flavour upon flavour,
a mouth-watering treasury,
pungence of seasonings,
and the aroma of incense
from the prayer room
next door. Each morning
the kitchen awoke
to the swish of churning butter,
the scraping of scoured pots.
And in the centre, the stove,
fresh washed with mud, painted
and bedecked, all set to burn.
We saved secret money in the
seasoning box; hid sweets too,
and played at cooking with lentils and jaggery. We played Mother and Father,
in the magic world of kitchen
that wrapped childhood in its spell.
No longer playground for the grownup girl
now trained into kitchenhood.
Like all the mothers and mothers' mothers before her, in the kitchen,
she becomes woman right here.
Our kitchen is a mortuary.
Pans, tins, gunny bags
crowd it like cadavers
that hang amid clouds of damp wood smoke. Mother floats, a ghost here,
a floating kitchen herself,
her eyes melted in tears,
her hands worn to spoons,
her arms, spatulas that turn
into long frying pans, and
other kitchen tools.
Sometimes mother glows
like a blazing furnace,
and burns through the kitchen,
pacing, restless, a caged tiger,
banging pots and pans.
How easy, they say,
the flick of the ladle and the cooking's done.
No one visits now.
No one comes to the kitchen except to eat.
My mother was queen of the kitchen,
but the name engraved on the pots and pans is Father's.
Luck, they say, landed me in my great kitchen, gas stove, grinder, sink, and tiles.
I make cakes and puddings,
not old-fashioned snacks as my mother did.
But the name engraved on the pots and pans
is my husband's.
My kitchen wakes
to the whistle of the pressure cooker,
the whirr of the electric grinder.
I am a well-appointed kitchen myself,
turning round like a mechanical doll.
My kitchen is a workshop, a clattering,
busy, butcher stall, where I cook
and serve, and clean, and cook again.
In dreams, my kitchen haunts me,
my artistic kitchen dreams,
the smell of seasonings even in the jasmine.
Damn all kitchens! May they burn to cinders! The kitchens that steal our dreams, drain
our lives, eat our days-like some enormous vulture.
Let us destroy these kitchens
that turned us into serving spoons.
Let us remove the names engraved on the pots and pans.
Come, let us tear out these private stoves, before our daughters must step
solitary into these kitchens.
For our children's sakes,
let us destroy these lonely kitchens
Vimla wrote the feminist poem "The Kitchen" in Telugu. BBVL Narayana Rao translated it into English.
The poem portrays the sufferings of housewives in the kitchen and their household responsibilities. Housewives have endured confinement and imprisonment in the kitchen for ages. The poet brings out the plight of women in ordinary homes in India. The poet is not talking just for herself but for the women's community.
The poet recalls her childhood association with the kitchen. It was a mouth-watering treasury, filled with a sharp, bitter smell and decorated with well-washed utensils, pans, and tins.
telugu version of the poem వంటిల్లు
In stanza 2, "We saved secret money..." the poet used the first-person plural ‘we’ to apply this phenomenon to all the girls in India. They save their money on seasoning boxes, a practice that is prevalent in every Indian household. For grownups, the kitchen is no longer a playground but a training center where girls are trained to cook a variety of recipes.
The poet calls the kitchen a mortuary and her mother a ghost, as all the pans, tins, and gunny bags crowd like corpses that hang amid clouds of smoke. The poet’s mother sometimes glows like a blazing furnace and works restlessly and at a great pace in a caged kitchen. The writer laments that no one in the family visits the kitchen except to eat, and expresses her anguish over not giving due recognition to their work. Though her mother was the queen of the kitchen, her father’s name was engraved on the pots. The same thing has been repeated in her case as well.
The writer shows the change in kitchen gadgets and compares her modern recipe with her mother’s old-fashioned snacks. She calls the womenfolk to remove the names engraved on pots and tins and destroy the lonely kitchens.
At last, the writer fervently appeals to establish a new kitchen, which was shared equally by all the members of the family, and warns not to step alone into the kitchen
Unit 3
What is My Name?
P. Sathyavathi
interview with P.Satyavathi
https://youtu.be/HiG1c-lb5_M?si=MrQ2LjdglNPY09wZ
3. Bring out the essence of the short story "What Is My Name"? by P. Satyavathi. (KU December 2023)
కళ్లు తెరిపించే కథా రచయిత్రి | Sakshi
Story in Telugu
About the author
Satyavathi is a Telugu writer. She was born in Kolakaluru, Tenali, to Satyanarayana Desiraju and Kanaka Durga. She has a postgraduate degree in English literature, and she taught English at Sayyed Applaswami College until 1998. P. Satyavathi is one of the writers who has brought feminism to the pinnacle of Telugu literature. The Tamil book, an autobiography of a transgender person (Unarvum Uruvamum), earned her the Kendra Sahitya Academy Award in the translation category. The book's English title is The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story, whereas the Telugu version adopts the title Nijam Cheptunna: Oka Hijra Atmakatha. She received prestigous Kuvempu national award recently. She widely read the novels of Malathi Chandur, Kodavatiganti Kutumba Rao and Rachakonda Vishwanatha Sastri and influenced by their writings. She has published four short-story anthologies, seven novels, and a collection of essays. Her stories often have a feminist angle.
About the story.
Characters:-
Sarada: A housewife who forget her name. (Mrs.Murthy)
Satyanarayana Muthy:- Sarada's husband
Pramila:- Sarada's school friend.
Ammayai- the maidservant
Sarada's children
Sarada's parents.
P. Sathyavathi originally wrote the short story "What is My Name?"
in Telugu, and Vijayalaxmi and Ranga Rao translated it into English. "What
Is My Name" was originally published as "Illalakagaane" (ఇల్లలకగానే ) in Telugu in 1990 and has been
translated into almost all the south Indian languages and Hindi.The writer advises to women not to lose their identity
under any circumstances.
It is the story of a young, educated housewife who forgets her name. Her
husband married her for the beauty and dowry offered by her father. She cleans
and swabs the floors spotlessly. Her husband praises her for her dexterity in
cleaning and scrubbing. Swabbing has become her life's chief mission. While
scrubbing the floor, she suddenly thinks about her name, but she doesn't
remember it. She asks her maid about her name, but the maid only knows her as a
mistress. During lunch, the restless housewife asks her children about her
name. They, too, are unaware of her name, as they have always addressed her as
Amma. They assert that they are familiar with their father's name, as it
appears on all the letters. She decides to ask her husband. He is her only
hope, and he can solve her problem. During the evening meal, she asks him if he
knows her name. He laughs at her, saying that she never asked him to call her
by her original name. He calls her yemoi. He informs her that her certificates
bear her name. She never bothered about her certificates after her marriage, so
she hasn’t brought them with her.
When she visits her parents' house, she asks her mother what her name is. Her mother, too, never calls her by name. For her, she is a daughter married to a good man. She never imagined that forgetting her own name would pose a significant challenge in her life. She frantically searches for her certificates but cannot find them. She comes across her school friend, Pramila. Pramila immediately recognizes her and calls her by her name, Sharada. . She comes across her school friend, Pramila. Pramila immediately recognizes her and calls her by her name, Sharada. Her friend breathes new life into her by referring to her as 'Sarada!' My dear Sarada!. Pramila was also married and a housewife like her, but she had not made swabbing the sole purpose of her life.
Pramila
reminisces about their school days and Sharada's achievements in drawing and
music competitions. Pramila reminds Sarada that she stood first in tenth class.
At last, she knows her name. Sarada returns to her parents' house, climbs the
attic, and finds certificates, old albums, and pictures she has drawn. Overjoyed,
she returns to her home and warns her husband not to call her yemoi, geemoi.
She asserts her identity as Sarada and expresses her preference for using that
name.
.Themes:-
Female consciousness
Quest for Identity
Gender equality
.
.
Poem:-
“Voice Of Unwanted Girl”
3. The poem "Voice of the Unwanted Girl" by Sujata Bhatt is a voice of protest against the cruel act of female foeticide. Examine.(KU December 2023)
Mother, I am the one you sent away when the doctor told you, I would be
“A Girl”-in the end the had to give me an injection to kill me.
Before I died, I heard the traffic rushing outside, the mansoon slush,
the wind sulking through your city. I could have clutched the neon blue.
No one wanted to touch me except later in autopsy room. I looked like a sliced
Pomegranate. The fruit you never touched. Mother, I am the one you sent away,
When doctor told you, I would be a girl-your second girl. Afterwards, as soon as
You could put on your grass-green sari. Afterwards everyone smiled, but now I
Ask you, to look for me, mother.look for me bcoz I wont come to you in your
Dreams.look for me, bcoz I wont be a flower, I wont turn into a butterfly, and I
am not a part of anyone’s song. Look for me, mother, becoz this is not “God’s Will”.
Look for me , mother, becoz I smell of formaldehyde and still, I wish
About the poet
About the poem
You would look for me, mother……
