Kaleidoscope : An Interdisciplinary Journal
of Humanities and Social Sciences
A Peer Reviewed Journal of Purbasthali College
A Peer Reviewed Journal of Purbasthali College
Volume I Issue i (December 2025)
Abstract: Whilst Gandhi despised cinema, which, he believed, corrupted human minds, he became the subject of investigation and of cinema as well. The article aims at studying Gandhi’s life and his indelible impact on the Indian freedom struggle that changed the face of political protest through Satyagraha. Nowadays, Gandhian principles are treated perfunctorily and it sees a bleak future, therefore, the study intends to do an exhaustive re-reading of Gandhi to realize the universality of his persona through cinema. The movies of Lage Raho Munna Bhai (LRMB) (2006) and Gandhi, My Father (GMF) (2007) are taken for the study to explore the nuances of Gandhi’s life including both his shortcomings and strengths. Through the movies, it is notable to read whether Gandhi’s philosophy is utopian or there is a revival of his thoughts. The purpose of the present study is not to question Gandhi as a saintly being but to posit certain questions through the movies which might provide some aid to understand Gandhi’s role and relevance in the present times. The study proposes to examine Gandhi’s influence upon Munna (the protagonist in LRMB) in an era of post-liberalisation, who adopts neologistic approach of “Gandhigiri” (a portmanteau of “Gandhism” and “dadagiri”) creating an immediate magical effect. Gandhi in LRMB replicates Nandy’s fourth form of Gandhi who is more of a common man and travels along with Munna to figure out solutions to his day-to-day problems. However, in GMF, Gandhi’s life is portrayed along with his relation with humankind and his eldest son, Harilal. Moreover, through GMF, the study purports to analyse Gandhi’s contributions and his ineffaceable role in India's Struggle for Independence along with his impact in South Africa. Both the movies reflect Gandhi’s impression— firstly upon Munna, for whom Gandhi becomes an impeccable influencer/ problem solver; secondly, upon Harilal, for whom Gandhi becomes the major problem creator. Therefore, the study seeks to unravel how Gandhi, the advocator of peace, becomes one of the finest examples for the sustainable growth of humanity and society. As a result, this study accesses Gandhi whose universality and aura transcended globally, thus, it can be speculated that his philosophy of life is still very much relevant in the present era.
Keywords: Revival of Gandhian Principles, Mahatma Gandhi, Hindi Cinema, Influence of Gandhi
Abstract: Narratology gives us a systematic way to understand how stories work and how they capture our attention. Unnatural narratologists work with narratives that ignore, challenge, or transgress the conventions of mimetic narratives. These unnatural narratives problematize our ontological status, often intentionally disrupting our cognitive processing and imploring us to speculate, even if just momentarily, about the plausibility of the encounter. In making sense of these speculative texts, readers use a variety of existing schemata to reconcile perceived impossibilities and naturalize unnatural elements of the narrative. But what if the process of naturalizing narratives also encouraged us to speculate past our initial discomforts and cognitive reconciliations in a way that acknowledged the vibrancy of objects? How might reading ‘unnatural’ narratives implore us to re/consider our understanding of ‘natural’ itself?
In this article, I employ an explication of the speculative fiction text Dear First Love by Zoé Valdés to place narratology and the frameworks readers use in attempting to naturalize the un/natural elements of the text in dialogue with the Continental philosophies of speculative realisms. In doing so, I aspire to articulate a point of entry through which both sets of theories, might be re/engage(d) within the creation of new schemata of understanding. With this engagement, I further seek to assert that a strategic use of anthropomorphism, as discussed by theorist Jane Bennett, might encourage not only a re/enchantment with narrative itself, but also an equal and potentially more impactful re/engagement with all matter.
Keywords: Narratology, Speculative Fiction, Unnatural Narrative, Speculative Realisms
Abstract: This paper explores the highly unusual nature of the role of Kabesa, Cowboy, Cowgirl or Cowhand of Heaven or Chief of the Kristang people, currently held by the author, the 13th person to assume the position – and the first to name and define it and be recognised as such by both the wider Kristang community and external state and international institutions after being named as leader of the community by one such institution in 2023. The paper details the decolonial hybrid Creole-Indigenous historical research paradigm and felt knowledge-based and relational-epistemological methodology that facilitated the retroactive formal concretisation of the Kabesa role by the author, the subsequent use of a range of primary sources – including biographical materials, non-fiction anthologies, official state-compiled resources, newspaper clippings and oral history – to recover the identity of the author’s twelve predecessors as Kabesa, the relational mechanics by which the holder of the role is now accepted to be beholden to, and their parallels in many other Indigenous communities related and adjacent to the Kristang. The paper concludes with the first scholarly delineation of the exact responsibilities of the Kabesa, and why they are more important than ever in the face of anticipated global societal collapse.
Keywords: Kristang, Singapore, Kabesa, Indigenous, leadership
Abstract: In this paper, I argue for the reclassification of Jovita González and Eve Raleigh’s Caballero: A Historical Novel (1996) as a Frontier Gothic text, demonstrating that its engagement with the repressed history of colonialization of Indigenous lands is essential to its narrative power as well as its historical and romantic elements. While the novel is conventionally dubbed a “historical novel” or “historical romance,” this analysis employs Elizabeth Jane Wall Hinds’s Frontier Gothic framework to reveal how the anxieties of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands fundamentally shape the Mendoza y Soría family’s experience. By employing close reading of character interactions and setting descriptions through a Gothic lens, this paper argues that Caballero’s true significance lies in its powerful portrayal of how the violence and rigid tradition of colonization in North America become the perpetual haunting mechanisms dismantling the patriarchal empire from within.
Keywords: Jovita González, Caballero, Gothic, Colonialization, Mexican-American War fiction
Abstract: The Tulāpuruṣa-dāna, or the ritual of weighing a person against gold, is an essential part of Indian cultural history that connects Vedic morality with modern devotion. This article traces Tulāpuruṣa-dāna from its conceptual origins in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, where the scale (Tulā) symbolised cosmic balance, to its formalisation as the highest Mahādāna in the Purāṇas, by examining inscriptions from the medieval Indian dynasties of the Cholas, Vijayanagara, and Travancore. The study shows how the ritual was used as a political tool to claim sovereignty, erase sins, and distribute royal wealth. It contends that the ceremony's significance underwent profound transformations over three millennia: originally a metaphor for self-sacrifice in the Mahābhārata, it evolved into a spectacle of statecraft during the medieval era, and ultimately into a mechanism for caste legitimisation in the colonial Travancore. The study concludes by analysing the ritual's democratisation in modern temples such as Dwarkadhish and Guruvayur. In modern times, the Tulābhāra has lost its royal status and become a popular religious service open to anyone. This has turned an old royal ceremony into a living tradition of public faith.
Keywords: Tulāpuruṣa-dāna, Tulābhāra, Mahādāna, Royal Kingship, Ritual Economy, Temple Democracy
Abstract: Demographic changes introduced through population aging and the recent proliferation of technological innovations constitute indisputable realities of the digital era marked by rampant digital reliability. Research has brought to light that the existing standardized design principles for technology are insufficiently attentive to the specific needs of elderly population. This, in turn, has unduly affected technology adoption rate among elderly who are designated as the digitally marginalized segment, especially within the developing nations. This paper presents a systematic review to illustrate the complex relation between attitudes of elderly towards technology and the role of well-designed technologies curated for an ageing population in offering opportunities to improve the quality of later years. Research evidences from scholarly works are systematically collated to focus on structuring the numerous factors impacting technology (non)adoption and continued usage by elderly people. Adhering to the inclusion criteria of selecting studies only written in English, this paper summarizes the factors namely, personal characteristics, social contexts and technology-related dimensions, to provide rich insights into the chosen area of investigation. Here, we discuss the role of diverse technological interventions, and the challenges faced by those aged at least 50 years in maneuvering or coping with new technologies and adapting to the transforming structures. The findings suggest the necessity to focus on the opportunities created when technologies bridge the design gap. The corpus of evidence is pulled to recommend effective strategies to overcome present barriers. We suggest involving the elderly as co-designers. The paper concludes by addressing the directions for future research.
Keywords: Elderly, Digital Technology, Opportunities, Barriers, Digital Divide
Abstract: Through examining John Lyly’s Galatea from the lenses of queer theory and gender theory, it is clear that the play’s titular character—herein referred to as Tityrus II—serves as an explicit example of transmasculine identity within Renaissance literature, specifically Renaissance plays. Drawing upon Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity and Agnes Callard’s theory of aspiration, this essay explores the repeated enactments of masculinity that produce Tityrus II’s gendered substance, revealing a persistent desire to live as authentically male. Through a close reading of Galatea, the essay analyzes the ways in which transformation and erasure function as strategies of self-construction and survival by contrasting Tityrus II’s comfort with masculine performance to Phillida’s resistance to boyhood. In highlighting the relationship between gender enactments within the play, this essay uncovers transgender possibilities within the scope of Renaissance plays.
Keywords: Transgender, Substantial Self, Essence, Transformation, Metamorphosis
Abstract: Theoretically reconsidering the biographical film as prototypical of post-documentary, this paper insists that “biography” despite being the minor subgenre has become the conceptual premise upon which the “documental” rests. Attending to the notional hybridity between historie and discours, this creative approach to life-writing reworks “documenting” by examining the temporal treatment of the stated biographical film creators. This paper also asserts that the genealogical approach of Danny Boyle’s filmic biography of Jobs’s life not only auto-reflects the converged space that contemporary documentary must inhabit; what is more crucial is the performative dimension that necessarily underpins any writing on the life of the Apple co-founder. Thus, analytical attention endows these filmic biographies not merely as “truthful” representations of an icon but also the illuminating acme of a new type of documentary that is non-exclusive, bringing to life the figurally converged Steve Jobs with Michael Fassbender (the actor playing the titular character for Danny Boyle’s critically acclaimed 2015 Steve Jobs) and Jobs with Ashton Kutcher (Joshua Michael Stern’s 2013 Jobs) with an elaboration on how the aforementioned biographical films aesthetically and visually interpellated the individual whose life is on display. I engage with Bill Nichols’s, Carl Plantinga’s and Noel Carroll’s concepts on documentary to address the hybrid characteristic found within these biographical films with the following research questions. First, what ideas can one draw from biography’s accommodation of death (Jobs’s unfortunate demise in 2011 arguably prompt these two biographical films) in its sense of “life-writing”? Second, how does the genealogically inclined films address the discursive and the historiographical grounds upon which life-writing is itself based? Most importantly, how does the biographical film interpellatively rework the concept of the performative found within Nichols’s modes of documentary, especially noting that the performative mode rests within the observational during his 1991 publication, Representing Reality, whereas his 2001 publication rightly gives this mode its own space? An address of the puissance of iconography of which Jobs is arguably a symbol gives this writer opportunity to write on the robust visual writing of his life.
Keywords: Biography, Performativity, Steve Jobs, Transmediation, Transindividuality
Abstract: Since the New London Group introduced the term “multiliteracies” in 1996, rhetoric and writing scholars have taken up and extended their call to investigate the how, what, why (and later when) of multiliteracies pedagogy. This article first reviews the state of multiliteracies research by exploring these issues. It then argues that adding where to this list of questions is a critical move that will allow us to productively expand at least one prominent metaphor for literacy—that of sponsorship. This paper finally proposes “ecologies of sponsorship” as a metaphor that explains how people use multiliteracies in various contexts over the course of their lives. Understanding multiliteracies development in the context of ecologies of sponsorship draws attention to the various spaces of multiliteracies development and the ecological connections across those spaces.
Keywords: Digital Literacy, Rhetoric, Composition, Pedagogy
Abstract: Axiology is a component of ethics. It is the general theory of values and involves the study and analysis of things that are ultimately valuable or unworthy. Human ideas, wants, and longings are not separate from values. Fundamentally, values are relational. It seems to be a partnership. Our life experience prevents us from perceiving it. In a human community, values are placed in a hierarchical manner according to their significance and specific social norms that stem from the group’s practical and spiritual needs. Along with poles, values possess degrees. From unpleasant to agreeable, from appealing to unattractive, from virtuous to sinful, and from just to unjust, there are many degrees. Value is a pure and necessary item. Social-human action produces values. Value is a latent model for action as well as an impulse to act. From an axiological perspective, a person gains worth by being someone, and being someone is defined by doing something. Value adds a human element to meeting human needs and creates new societal and human needs as a result of cultural production. Axiological investigation looks at the hidden aspects of human behaviour rather than the obvious ones. The goal of the paper is to examine the axiological dimensions of the nature and meaning of value.
Keywords: Value, Axiology, Ethics, Good, Truth, Beauty
Abstract: The tradition of Indian music is phenomenal. Beginning with the Sāmaveda, it has flowed through various forms, each with its own specificity and nomenclature, such as gāndharva mārga, deśī, dhrupada, kheyāla, ṭhuṃri, ṭappā, bhajana, kīrttana, padāvalī, rāgamālikā, kṛti, padam, jāvali, and tillānā, among others. The sāmagāna, gāndharva-saṁgīta have been lost to the passage of time. But, in the present time, the Indian classical music, both Hindustani and Carnatic, bears historical lineage to the ancient gāndharva music. The music which is popularised by the gāndharvas, a community who had been the great connoisseur of music, is called, generally, gāndharva music. Bharata, the great writer of Nāṭyaśāstra, presented gāndharva music as “svara-tāla-padātmakam”, which means that music has been formed mainly with three components, they are – svara (musical notes), tāla (beat) and pada (meaningful words). Details of these three will be discussed in the paper.
Keywords: gāndharva music, svara, tāla, pada, śruti, grāma, mūrcchanā
Abstract: From classical to contemporary works, Indian literature has a remarkable repertoire of stories, depictions, and narrations of gender violence, sexual abuse, and domestic crimes against women. What, however, is worth investigating in the evolution of the narratives of violence meted out to women is the ‘paradigm shift’ in the voice and gaze of the survivor-narrator, inaugurating a departure from silence to agency, from the masochist to the feminist, from the margin to the center. As the gender of the narrator of women-centric works has begun to change, storytelling is being informed by the female gaze and voice. Moreover, the recent #MeToo digital movement has turned around the whole discourse of gender-based crimes. Among the writers who have ushered in this shift in storytelling, a defining voice is Meena Kandasamy. Her work When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife, a fictionalized account of her own abusive marriage, offers to change the way readers view the perpetrator vis-à-vis the survivor or fighter in a sexual assault. The novel may be seen as a groundbreaking endeavor toward challenging the stereotypical flawed or prejudiced style of storytelling that pushes readers to feel pity, intrigue, revulsion, or even vicarious attraction towards fictional survivors of gender violence, which is unimaginative and lacking in empathy. This paper attempts to discuss the ‘paradigm shift’ in the narration, arguing how Kandasamy replaces the voice and gaze of intense sexual brutality and domestic cruelty narrated by male perpetrators with the conversation on women’s agency and their own physical and psychological realities. The study also seeks to celebrate the positionality and power of Kandasamy’s voice as it breaks through domestic imprisonment to a world of freedom in the line of the celebratory postmodern catchphrase ‘the personal is political’.
Keywords: Sexual Violence, Domestic Abuse, Gaze, Agency, Power, Discourse