Asian Journal of Humanity, Art and Literature

150-154

Authors: Morve Roshan K.

This study deals with the conflict of Nigerian Biafran War 6 July, 1960-15 January, 1967 as represented in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun (2006). The study attempts to address the following four questions: first, what are the causes-effects of Biafran/Civil war? Second, why Nigerians have been suffering during the wartime? Third, how does the representation of Nigerian history enable understanding of the post-colonial issues? And final, what is the role of conflict in Nigerian history? In order to understand this conflict, the study addresses the detailed analysis of war conflict, ethnic conflict, class conflict, military conflict and eco-political conflict. The post-colonial approach becomes one of the ways of engaging the theoretical understanding of the novel Half of a Yellow Sun. In sum up, the novel is located with the issues of marginality, history and conflict, which interrogates through post-colonial theoretical formations and the six-phase structure of war novels.

163-168

Authors: Pramita Kaur Sidhu

“A Malaysian Journey” is written by Rehman Rashid, a Malaysian Bumiputra, born in Taiping (p 25), whose father is of Arab –Indian parentage while his mother is from a Tamil –Eurasian parentage (p39-41). The text describes two journeys, the first being a physical journey that Rehman Rashid, the writer himself undertakes upon his return home to Malaysia, while the second journey is an emotionally critical, highly personal, expressive and hopeful journey on Malaysia’s pre and post independence history and its impact on the him as an individual and on the multiethnic Malaysian society. Both journeys, however, attempt to introduce readers to the social matrices, politics, religion (practiced by the majority) and culture of Malaysians. The goals are here to challenge reader’s existing socio-political perceptions on pre and post independent Malaysia and to shape writer’s own discernment and consciousness on his social cultural background.

186-194

Authors: Tusar Talukder

Bangladeshi poetry underwent significant changes in cases of subject-matter, theme, and technique over the period of last 40 years. With the passage of time, it embraced as well as adapted to those changes. De facto, after the year of 2000, how poetry has been fashioned in a new way is brought into focus through this research paper. More particularly, I have studied the subject-matter, theme, and language of four contemporary Bangladeshi poets namely Mujtaba Ahmed Murshed, Obayed Akash, Binoy Barman and Rakibul Hasan. I have considered these less known but substantial poets’ poetry because while coming across their poems I have minutely noticed the changes and variety they have celebrated through their verses. Therefore, I have selected four poetry collections of the aforementioned poets to expose multifarious aspects of the contemporary Bangladeshi poetry.

77-83

Authors: Morve Roshan K.

“Tamasha” is a form of entertainment, which came in the 16th century and transforms it into business and politics after the independence of India. It became a cultural part of the Kolhati community in Maharashtra. This paper has significant to define that the politics of Tamasha and female suffering through the twentieth century dalit autobiography Kishor Kale’s Kolhatyach Por (1994). It will also discuss that his personal and painful experiences where he born and grown up in the misery environment. It needs to understand that how the dalit women becoming the victims of politics and how their family takes tragic and painful end. Therefore, this paper tries to make a link between the Tamasha dancers and the dalit experiences through the power politics. In the end, it comes to conclude that emergence of the dehumanized social conditions and ignorance of the dalit Kolhaty community. It demands for their right and the respect of the Tamasha art.

97-117

Authors: Endale Alemu Hora

This study aimed to identify status of women in Bedele town administration, as well point out factors hindering women from the participating in public and forward some possible recommendations for solving the problems identified through study. Primarily, the study is of descriptive in nature and survey method was used in data gathering. Data used in this paper is mainly primary but to some extent secondary data as well, quantitative and qualitative types was incorporated. In doing this research paper, of total employees existing in Bedele Town administration, 108 (30% of total population) sample respondents were selected using systematic random sampling method, and were placed questionnaires containing open ended and closed ended nature questions personally, 103 (95.37%) of them had filled and returned the questionnaire. In addition, a mayor of the town and Women Affair office head were addressed through interview using interview guide. In way of analyzing data, techniques such as tabulation, percentages, chart and the like has been employed. Study revealed that, in public institutions existed in Bedele Town, the majority of women were having an educational status of diploma and lower, holding lower non decision making and leadership positions, and observed major barriers hindering women from public leadership and decision-making positions include: Socio-cultural attitudes and lack of acquisition of the necessary experience for taking part in public decision-making, Over burden of domestic responsibilities continuation of the negative attitudes regarding women’s ability to lead and govern, Lack of role models of women leaders for young women and girls, and the like can be stated. Finally, the researcher has forwarded some possible ways in which women could appear in public decision making and leadership.

18-29

Authors: Tharindu Dananjaya Weerasinghe

Breakfast is an important constituent of any person's daily food concerto. It contributes to provide the base of nourishment for the entire day. Skipping the breakfast directly affects to health, performance, satisfaction and too many physical and psychological matters of a person. The university arenas represent the final opportunity of health and nutritional education for a large number of young undergraduates in Sri Lanka. Thus, this study was conducted with the purpose of investigating the prevalence & determinants of breakfast omission of undergraduates in Sri Lanka. The study was conducted as a cross sectional field study among a sample of 502 undergraduates in Sri Lanka. Convenience sampling was applied to select the sample and investigation was carried out in all the faculties of four public universities in Colombo, Sri Lanka.Self administered, pre - tested questionnaire which met the accepted standards of validity and reliability was used to collect data. It is found that prevalence of breakfast omission is high among Sri Lankanundergraduates thought it is understood that omission of breakfast affects to undergraduates' health status and ultimately to the academic performance. Findings revealed that accommodation, frequency of skipping the dinner, fast food habits, academic year, daily academic time table, smoking and financial difficultiesare significantly affect to omit the breakfast. Undergraduates stay in own houses are less likely to omit the breakfast in comparison to those who stay in hostels and bodings. Third years and final years are more prone to omit the breakfast while smokers are less likely to omit. No significant relationship is found between gender, consumption of nutritional supplements, time taken for traveling and ethnic group with prevalence of breakfastomission. Health awareness programs or education of healthy eating guidelines must be initiated for both undergraduates and food caters in Sri Lankan universities. The quality and price of supplied foods in state universities must also be frequently reviewed. Key Words: Breakfast omission, Sri Lankan undergraduates, Food habits

41-47

Authors: Fadhila Sidi-Said

This paper proposes to explore gender relations in Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent. Operating from the knowledge that gender is culturally determined feminists criticize male-dominated patriarchal societies, which they argue marginalize or discount women by limiting their opportunity for self-definition and self-actualization. The question that needs to be addressed, then, is: Is gender relation in The Secret Agent constructed around stereotypical representations? Or can this work be read otherwise? Our assumption is that Conrad’s criticism of such patriarchal system is done through irony. The ‘Edenic home’ that would embody Conrad’s cherished ideals is, as we know, a home browbeaten by a political exile. We shall argue that Conrad deals narratively with his own traumatic history by displacing it onto Winnie’s otherness. This traumatic event is ironically expressed in the falling down of the novel’s house, the house of an overweening, unquestioned patriarchy. On one hand, the fallen house symbolizes the ‘idealization’ of the Western society. On the other hand, it raises ideological issues in relation to the “Other”, the oppressed. We shall argue that the evidence of his biography, correspondence, and the fictional work under study suggest a complex relationship between the writer, the women in his life, and the fictional female characters. The importance of the female character, Winnie Verloc, may be explained by the fact that women played a vital role during his youth in Poland. In a letter of 1900 to Edward Garnett, Conrad himself remarked on the benefit he had received from the close bond and the extraordinary ‘sister-cult’ established amongst the Bobrowski women.