Vaidehi Hariyani

After a long hectic schedule, this Sunday I spared some time in reading an interesting play “ Hayavadana ” by Girish Karnad . Girish Karnad’s plays have always fascinated me. Last year, got a wonderful chance to see Karnad’s “ Nagamandala ” performed by college students during Youth Festival 2015. Click here to read the review of the play. Girish Raghunath Karnad (born 19 May 1938) is an Indian actor, film director, writer, playwright and a Scholar, who predominantly works in South Indian cinema. He  rise as a playwright in 1960s, marked the coming of age of modern Indian playwriting in Kannada, just as Badal Sarkar did in Bengali, Vijay Tendulkar in Marathi, and Mohan Rakesh in Hindi. For four decades Karnad has been composing plays, often using history and mythology to tackle contemporary issues.(Wikipedia) Some of his well-known plays are “ Hayavadana”, “Tughlaq” , “Nagamandala ” and many more. The plot of Hayavadana comes from Kathasaritsagara, a...

Hey Friends, Today I am going to share one presentation about “Representation of Women in Disney”.  This presentation is not a part of any academic activity. It is a birthday gift for my niece. Next month she is going to turn 18. Like every girl she is fond of Disney princesses and lives in her fantasy world. Over the years, I always gifted her Barbie and castle and all the Disney stuff. This year I thought to gift her something unique. As she always asks me about my studies and the literary theories like Feminism. We all know that reality is quite different than this fantasy world. I would just like to show her the other side of the coin. I have not gone deep down in applying Feminism, as she is not quite mature to understand everything. This is my first step to make her aware of the real world in a mild way. Hope you all will enjoy this presentation….. Representation of Women in Disney from vaidehi Hariyani Thank You….

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an anti-slavery novel written by an American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe. This was one of my favourite novels during graduation and today as well. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was an American eradicator and author. She is best known for her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In the 17 th and 18 th centuries North America was a British colony. The southern part of the continent was suitable for growing cotton, which was sold for high prices. The settlers need lots of labour to develop their land. Thus, they bought slaves from the west coast of Africa and sold to the planters in the southern states of America. The novel was written in 1852, at that time America was divided into two sections. The Northern Federation of States did not allow slavery, while the Southern Federation insisted that slavery was important for the development of agriculture and trade. In the Northern Federation, there was a great struggle to put end to slavery. The writing of this ...

In my Graduation syllabus, I had a book named “ The Winged word”. This anthology is edited by David Green. It is anthology of poems compiled for the students of English literature in the B.A courses of Indian Universities. The chronological order, in which the poets are arranged in this book, helps the students to note the development of English poetry from one age to another. Referring to this book after a long time span, gives me a immense joy. There are many poems in this book. We were given some selected poems to study during three years of graduation. The poems which were in my syllabus are as follow:-    1.)   I Find No Peace – Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42)    2.) My Friend, the Things That Do Attain –Henry Howard (1517- 47)    3.) The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd –Sir Walter Ralegh (1552-1618)    4.) The Nightingale – Sir Philip Sidney (1554- 86)    5.) Since There’s No Help – Michael...

This blog is a part of my classroom activity…. Click on the below image to have a look at the activity. Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett.In this play two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone named Godot. The play is divided into two acts.  Here are my responses for the classroom activity given above. 1.)     The setting of the play is “A country road, A tree, Evening ”. This setting is inspired from two paintings by Casper David Friedrich's “Longing”. In both the setting of the play and these paintings, we find the play of ‘ hope ’ and ‘despair’ in human life. 2.)     Tree is the important symbol in both the acts. In the first act tree is barren, so it suggests the loss of faith and spiritual degradation among the people after World War 2. In the second act we find some leaves on the tree, it suggests hope. People were lost but there is a little hope t...

Hello friends, Today I attended the third programme organised by the Women’s Development Cell of Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University. After the last experiences of the programmes organised by the development cell, I was not much excited to attend this event. Ohhh! You forgot what happened in the past programmes????? No worries!!!! Click on the below image to rewind and see. The title of the programme was “Humour with Hormones”. This family programme or public awareness programme was amalgamated with Quawali – Bhavai – Dance. The keynote speaker of the event was Dr.Kala Shah (Senior Gynaecologist, Ahmedabad). She was going to talk about the Menopause and Andropause in a very light way. The event started with the speech by Dr. Zala sir (VC,MKBU). The speech by our VC was good. According to him, Whenever we talk about women empowerment we refer to names like Bachendri Pal ,Kiran Bedi etc. Women empowerment means to make women strong in ...

Hey all, During the last visit at the Central Library, I issued two books.....   1.)   “Koik var thai ke…” by Varsha Adalja. This book contains different Gujarati short stories. Varsha Adalja is a Gujarati feminist novelist, playwright and negotiator who won the 1995 Sahitya Akademi Award for Gujarati language for her novel Ansar. She is also a dramatist, writing for stage plays, screenplays, and radio. This collection of short stories reflects the human desires and how these desires are suppressed time and again by the society, family and other sources. One of the stories which I liked the most is “Koik var thai ke…” It is a story of a girl named Shalini, who reflects the typical obedient girl. She always listens to her parents and the important decisions of her life are also taken by them. Shalini loved Solanki and wanted to marry him, but she had to marry some rich guy. After 15 years they meet again, and the things have changed. Shalini represents no...