[Reader-list] re: acts of leisure

[avinash kumar]

A series of contributions on the theme and they all invoke certain 
memories, provoke certain reactions.
To begin with, Joy's take on our conditioning with the concept of 
leisure and work and also thr previous rejoinders by Iram and others on 
the usage of leisure as a means of social control seem to be coalescing 
for me.
 From my personal memory of school days, I recall certain teachers who 
would always ask us to 'read' during our 'leisure period' (that was when 
a teacher was out of station or indisposed etc). These readings could be 
anything, from a novel to readings done for mathematics homework (for 
which I was always tracked skillfully by a certain teacher who had taken 
a liking for me and who thought I should devote more time to practising 
sums). It was here that I tended to agree more with the idea of 
'leisure' expounded by a certain geography teacher who talked about 
Bimal Mitra's novels among other things of physical geography and a 
certain Hindi teacher who kept egging me by asking what was the latest 
novel I was reading those days. And sure to earn browny points, I would 
always oblige him with a certain exotic sounding name and actually all 
my free periods would be spent in reading some or the other novel.

It was much later during my university days that I came across Terry 
Eagleton's text book Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983/1996). Among 
other things it gave me a very interesting, shall I say, information 
that with the proliferation of literacy and print culture, idea of 
reading fiction got institutionalised with its increasing popularity 
among the literate middle class women of the bourgeoisie as well as the 
working classes. It was on this premise that literature as a discipline 
was geared towards 'neutralising' the so-called subversive potential of 
these sections. Interestingly it was in India that literature, 
particularly 'high English literature' was initiated as a formal 
discipline to be introduced in the university system even before it was 
done so in England. On this front, it was geared more towards 
instituionalising colonial cultural supremacy on one hand while 
'neutralising' the subjects through this 'useless act of leisure'. It 
was held true for both the societies, Britain and India, that the 
subjects like sciences, philosophy etc were considered more 'manly', 
hence useful for the ruling classes (if I am allowed to use this 
cliche), while reading literature was considered to be worthy for women 
and working classes at home and colonial subjects in the colonies.
Its altogether different story that these very forms of social-political 
control by a certain inculcation of reading habits got turned into 
arenas of challenges by all these 'subjects', women, working classes and 
colonial subjects.
I think I have overdone a bit, so I will stop right here for the moment.


avinash