Essays

“Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3, KJV) The above declaration that opens the book of Ecclesiastes captures the human anxiety that all the pursuits of man, such as wealth, comfort, goods, are fundamentally meaningless. This primal and persistent fear of the emptiness of human efforts has existed before this theological text and continues in

The etymology of the word ‘cap’ and its counterpart ‘no cap’ illustrates a significant evolution in modern slang, particularly in music and youth culture. The English lexicon is a constantly changing one and it is driven largely by social media and popular culture in the modern day. What was once confined to the people of an American city have today become ubiquitous, especially among younger generations. While these terms might seem recent to the average gen-z social media u

John Clare and Robert Burns occupy a distinctive position in the Romantic tradition, deeply rooted in the rural and lived experiences of ordinary men and women. Both Clare and Burns have been celebrated for their evocative manner of portraying nature and rural life as well as the emotional depth of their texts. Their works resonate with thematic similarities such as love, loss, and changing times explored through the lens of common people and a society closer to nature. The f

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria stands as a monumental text in literary criticism, offering his insights into the ideas around nature and perception. The thirteenth chapter of this book, ‘On the imagination, or the esemplastic power’, provides his exploration of the concept of imagination, which he heavily contrasts with the concept of fancy. In this essay, we will examine Coleridge’s understanding of imagination, its roots in philosophy, its two forms, and how

A man known for his simple and down-to-earth style of writing, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer (1908-1994) is a towering figure in contemporary Malayalam literature. He was a novelist and short-story writer who was informally also known as the Beypore Sultan, based on the place he had settled down in. Basheer was known prominently as a Malayalam writer but also as an activist for the independence of India. Having published fourteen novels and fourteen short stories, his stories still

[Absurdist fiction is a genre of novel that explores existential themes, where the meaning of life is explored, often nihilistically, leading to feelings of meaninglessness] In The Implied Reader (1972), Wolfgang Iser theorised the concept of the ‘implied reader’, an imaginary reader that the text sets for itself, whose capacities and expectations are important for the text to achieve its goal. On the basis of this understanding, we’ll try and identify the implied reader of t

The Oxford dictionary defines ‘Author’ as a writer of a book, article or document. The author assumes a central role here. This definition is challenged in the fields of literary and cultural studies and has evolved significantly from an object of authority to subject of critique. How we perceive and interpret texts has changed this common conception. Literary studies shifts our questioning of how the author is central to the text to is the author even necessary for the text.

This is a reflective piece I wrote on April 26, 2024 as part of a creative writing course. This piece connects a lot of my works published on this blog. Over this course, I was able to write two poems and a story for my assignments among other minor works. The semester allowed for me to spend a lot of time on these works(which proved little sometimes as well) and so the writing and its style that came through were choices which were mostly intentional. My first piece this sem

In May 2003, an album titled Nymphomatriarch was released under the label Hymen records. This album was the result of a collaboration between two artists, Venetian Snares and Hecate. Every track in this album used samples only from recordings of both these artists having sex. This was a music album, publicly released, and belonging to a genre known as ‘breakcore’. How would something like this even be considered music? What is musical about it? The term ‘breakcore’ first emer

When a loved one leaves you, it’s not them but a part of you too that goes along with them. Kerala, a widow, or a fatherless little girl, tremors on days when the rage and cries get too loud. She takes off her glimmering smile and jewels, and don herself in the fiercest of looks. Kohl and spirits rimming her eyes, red and black painted across the face, eardrums pried open to the sounds of ancient instruments of Chenda, Ilathalam, Veekan Chenda, Ilathalam, Kuzhal. An ancie

In the dimly lit corridors of Kaiga Generating Station(KGS) Hospital, faint shadows of patients waiting dance against the peeling paint of the walls. Larger than these however is the shadow cast by the shortage of doctors over this institution. Whispers of understaffed medical teams greet patients as they navigate the many ways of the hospital which take them to a few doctors. This critical void has unfortunately become the norm of the heartbeat of healthcare in this village.