The three-day national seminar (9-11 Sep, 2001) organized by Iaclals in association with the Central Sahitya Akademi and SCILET (Study Centre for Indian Literature in English and Translation, www.scilet.org), Madurai, on the topic "The 'West' in the Indian Imagination 1857-1947", was a delightful experience. As there is no scope here for detailed discussion about the papers, I must say at the outset that each paper was sharply focused and generated lively debate. The credit goes equally to the evocative topic for the seminar, to the participants, and to the organisers.

The venue was the seminar hall, American College, Madurai. In his inaugural remarks K Satchidanandan, Secretary, Sahitya Akademi, spoke of the ways in which the west has been conceived, appropriated and subverted in the Indian imagination. Meenakshi Mukherjee, Iaclals chairperson, underlined the importance of the period under discussion when colonial modernity was being negotiated and our critical self-fashioning took place.

The first business session started with C N Ramachandran's paper that discussed four lesser-known texts in English and argued that often the so-called 'colonial' cringe of the authors meshed with assertion of their cultural identity. Jashodara Bagchi made a scintillating presentation on the construction of the west in the humorous literature of Bengal. Sumanta Banerjee focused on the popular perception of the west in Bengali satires. The second session opened with C T Indra's paper on Parthasarathy's novel Comrades of Jesus where the focus shifts to eastern Europe. T Vijay Kumar discussed Gurazada's play Kanayasulkam underlining the ways in which the author critiqued the simple-minded reform movements of the time. In her paper Anjali Gera Roy dealt with the appropriation of the "good west" through the adoption of techno-nationalism in the blueprint for higher institutes of technological learning in India after independence.

The second day got off to a good start with Harish Trivedi's take off on four Hindi novels that engaged with the west, directly or tangentially, though he dealt at length only with Hazari Prasad Dwivedi's Banbhat ki Atmakatha. Then Prem Choudhury presented a critique of the films Junoon and Lagaan in the context of their portrayal of European characters. Mala Pandurang in her paper dealt with colonial encounter in East Africa with reference to the life and works of Alibhai Mulla Jeevanjee. Indira Choudhury's paper dealt with the separate journeys to the west of Tagore and Vivekananda as reflected in their travel writings.

The concluding session began with Tilottama Misra's paper on the construction of the west in Asamiya literature that continued to perpetuate the paternalistic image of the British. Uday Kumar, in the last paper made a nuanced presentation on the state of criticism and the problem of representation in Malayalam literature during the period under discussion.

A visit to the Meenakshi temple was organized on 11 Sep. During their stay in Madurai the delegates made full use of the wonderful collection of books and journal at the SCILET library. Paul Love, the director, in a brief presentation, spoke of the wonderful work done at the centre. He, and his staff, the staff of the Sahitya Akademi and the office bearers of IACLALS deserve a huge compliment for their excellent organization and hospitality.

M Asaduddin
asadu_eg@rediffmail.com