Project Management and Tran Essay

Tran was taking his dog Callie on her evening walk as the sun began to set over the coastal range. He looked forward to this time of the day. It was an opportunity to enjoy some peace and quiet. It was also a time to review events on the Ajax project and plot his next moves. Ajax is the code name given by CEBEX for a high-tech security system project funded by the U. S. Department of Defense (DOD). Tran is the project manager and his core them consisted of 30 full-time hardware and software engineers. Tran and his family fled he was 18 and used the education stipend to attend Washington State University. He joined CEBEX upon graduating with a dual degree in mechanical and electrical engineering. After working on a variety of projects for 10 years Tran decided he wanted to enter management. He went to night school at the University of Washington to earn an MBA. Tran became a project manager for the money. He also thought he was good at it. He enjoyed working with people and making the right thing happen. This was his fifth project and up to now he was batting. 500,with half of his projects coming ahead of schedule. Tran was proud that he could now afford to send his oldest child to Stanford University. Ajax was one of many defense projects the CEBEX Corporation had under contract with DOD. CEBEX is a huge defense company with annual sales in excess of $30 billion and more than 120,000 employees worldwide. CEBEX’s five major business areas are Aeronautics, Electronic Systems, Information& Solutions, and Space Systems. Ajax was one of several new projects sponsored by the Integrated Systems & Solutions division aimed at the homeland security business. CEBEX was confident that it could leverage its technical expertise and political connections to become a major player in this growing market. Ajax was one of several projects directed at designing, developing, and installing a security system at an important government installation. Tran had two major concerns when he started the Ajax project. The first was the technical risks inherent in the project. In theory the design principles made sense and the project used proven technology. Still the technology had never been applied in the field in this matter. From past experience, Tran knew there was a big difference between the laboratory and the real world. He also knew that integrating the audio, optical, tactile, and laser subsystems would test the patience and ingenuity of his team. The second concern involved his team. The team was pretty much split down the middle between hardware and electrical engineers. Not only did these engineers have different skill sets and tend to look at problems differently, but generational differences between the two groups were evident as well. The hardware engineers were almost all former military, family men with conservative attire and beliefs. The electrical engineers were a much motlier crew. They tended to be young, single, and at times very cocky. While the hardware engineers talked about the Seattle Mariners, raising teenagers, and going to Palm Desert to play golf, the software engineers talked about Vapor, the latest concert at Gorge amphitheater, and going mountain biking in Peru. To make matters worse, tension between these two groups within CEBEX festered around salary issues. Electrical engineers were at a premium, and the hardware engineers resented the new hires’ salary packages, which were comparable to what they were earning after 20 years of working for CEBEX. Still the real money was to be made from the incentives associated with project performance. These were all contingent on meeting project milestones and the final completion date. Before actual work started on the project, Tran arranged a tow-day team-building retreat at a lodge on the Olympic peninsula for his entire team as well as key staff from the government installation. He used this time to go over the major objectives of the project and unveil the basic project plan. An internal consultant facilitated several team-building activities that made light of cross-generational issues. Tran felt a real sense of camaraderie within the team. The good feelings generated from the retreat carried over to the beginning of the project. The entire team bought into the mission of the project and technical challenges it represented. Hardware and electrical engineers worked side by side to solve problems and build subsystems. The project plan was built around a series of five tests, with each test being a more rigorous verification of total system performance. Passing each test represented a key milestone for the project. The team was excited about conducting the first Alpha test one week early—only to be disappointed by a series of minor technical glitches that ook two weeks of problem solving to resolve. The team worked extra hard to make up for the lost time. Tran was proud of team and how hard members had worked together. The Alpha II test was conducted on schedule, but once again the system failed to perform. This time three weeks of debugging was needed before the team received the green light to move to the next phase of the project. By this time, team goodwill had been tested, and emotions were a bit frayed. A cloud of disappointment descended over the team as hopes of bonuses disappeared with the project falling further behind schedule. This was augmented by cynics who felt that the original schedule was unfair and the deadlines were impossible to begin with. Tran responded by starting each day with a status meeting where the team reviewed what they accomplished the previous day and set new objectives for that day. He believed these meetings were helpful in establishing positive momentum and reinforcing a team identity among the engineers. He also went out of his way to spend more time with the â€Å"troops,† helping them solve problems, offering encouragement, and a sincere pat on the back when one was deserved. He was cautiously optimistic when the time came to conduct the Alpha III test. It was the end of the day when the switch was turned on, but nothing happened. Within minutes the entire team heard the news. Screams could be heard down the hallway. Perhaps the most telling moment was when Tran looked down at the company’s parking lot and saw most of his project team walking by themselves to their cars. As Callie chased some wild bunnies, Tran pondered what he should do next. 1. How effective has Tran been as a project manager? Explain. 2. What problem(s) does Tran face?

Draupadi by mahashweta devi Essay

â€Å"Draupadi† by Mahasveta Devi Translated with a Foreword by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Translator’s Foreword I translated this Bengali short story into English as much for the sake of its villain, Senanayak, as for its title character, Draupadi (or Dopdi). Because in Senanayak I find the closest approximation to the First- World scholar in search of the Third World, I shall speak of him first. On the level of the plot, Senanayak is the army officer who captures and degrades Draupadi. I will not go so far as to suggest that, in practice, the instruments of First-World life and investigation are complicit with such captures and such a degradation.’ The approximation I notice relates to the author’s careful presentation of Senanayak as a pluralist aesthete. In theory, Senanayak can identify with the enemy. But pluralist aesthetes of the First World are, willy-nilly, participants in the production of an exploitative society. Hence in practice, Senanayak must destroy the enemy, the menacing other. He follows the necessities and contingencies of what he sees as his historical moment. There is a convenient colloquial name for that as well: pragmatism. Thus his emotions at Dopdi’s capture are mixed: sorrow (theory) and joy (practice). Correspondingly, we grieve for our Third-World sisters; we grieve and rejoice that they must lose themselves and become as much like us as possible in order to be â€Å"free†; we congratulate ourselves on our specialists’ knowledge of them. Indeed, like ours, Senanayak’s project is interpretive: he 1. For elaborations upon such a suggestion, see Jean-Fran~oisL yotard, La Condition post-moderne: Rappod sur b sauoir (Paris, 1979). O 1981 by The Univenity of Chicago. 0093-189618110802-0009$01.00. All rights reserved. 382 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak â€Å"Draupadi† looks to decipher Draupadi’s song. For both sides of the rift within himself, he finds analogies in Western literature: Hochhuth’s The Deputy, David Morrell’s First Blood. He will shed his guilt when the time comes. His self-image for that uncertain future is Prospero. I have suggested elsewhere that, when we wander out of our own academic and First-World enclosure, we share something like a relationship with Senanayak’s do~blethinkW.~h en we speak for ourselves, we urge with conviction: the personal is also political. For the rest of the world’s women, the sense of whose personal micrology is difficult (though not impossible) for us to acquire, we fall back on a colonialist theory of most efficient information retrieval. We will not be able to speak to the women out there if we depend completely on conferences and anthologies by Western-trained informants. As I see their photographs in women’s-studies journals or on book jackets-indeed, as I look in the glass-it is Senanayak with his anti-Fascist paperback that I behold. In inextricably mingling historico-political specificity with the sexual differential in a literary discourse, Mahasveta Devi invites us to begin effacing that image. My approach to the story has been influenced by â€Å"deconstructive practice.† I clearly share an unease that would declare avant-garde theories of interpretation too elitist to cope with revolutionary feminist material. How, then, has the practice of deconstruction been helpful in this context? The aspect of deconstructive practice that is best known in the United States is its tendency toward infinite regre~sionT.~h e aspect that interests me most is, however, the recognition, within deconstructive practice, of provisional and intractable starting points in any investigative effort; its disclosure of complicities where a will to knowledge would 2. See my â€Å"Three Feminist Readings: McCullers, Drabble, Habermas,† Union Seminu9 Quarterly Review 1-2 (Fall-Winter 197%80), and â€Å"French Feminism in an International Frame† (forthcoming in Yak French Studies). 3. I develop this argument in my review of Paul de Man’s Allegories ofReading: Figural Language in Rowseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Prowt (forthcoming in Studks in the Novel). Mahasveta Devi teaches English at Bijaygarh College in Jadavpur, India, an institution for working-class women. She has published over a dozen novels, most recently Chotti Munda ebang Tar Tir (â€Å"Chotti Munda and His Arrow†), and is a prolific journalist, writing on the struggle of the tribal peasant in West Bengal and Bihar. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin. The translator of Derrida’s De la grammtologte, she has published essays on Marxist feminism, deconstructive practice, and contemporary literature and is currently completing a book on theory and practice in the humanities. Critical Inquiry Winter 1981 383 create oppositions; its insistence that in disclosing complicities the criticas- subject is herself complicit with the object of her critique; its emphasis upon â€Å"history† and upon the ethico-political as the â€Å"trace† of that complicity-the proof that we do not inhabit a clearly defined critical space free of such traces; and, finally, the acknowledgment that its own discourse can never be adequate to its e ~ amp l eT. ~hi s is clearly not the place to elaborate each item upon this list. I should, however, point out that in my introductory paragraphs I have already situated the figure of Senanayak in terms of our own patterns of complicity. In what follows, the relationship between the tribal and classical characters of Draupadi, the status of Draupadi at the end of the story, and the reading of Senanayak’s proper name might be seen as produced by the reading practice I have described. The complicity of law and transgression and the class deconstruction of the â€Å"gentlemen revolutionaries,† although seemingly minor points in the interpretation of the story as such, take on greater importance in a political context. I cannot take this discussion of deconstruction far enough to show how Dopdi’s song, incomprehensible yet trivial (it is in fact about beans of different colors), and ex-orbitant to the story, marks the place of that other that can be neither excluded nor re~uperated.~ â€Å"Draupadi† first appeared in Agnigarbha (â€Å"Womb of Fire†), a collection of loosely connected, short political narratives. As Mahasveta points out in her introduction to the collection, â€Å"Life is not mathematics and the human being is not made for the sake of politics. I want a change in the present social system and do not believe in mere party politic^.†^ Mahasveta is a middle-class Bengali leftist intellectual in her fifties. She has a master’s degree in English from Shantiniketan, the famous experimental university established by the bourgeois poet Rabindranath Tagore. Her reputation as a novelist was already well established when, in the late ’70s, she published Hajar Churashir Ma (â€Å"No. 1084’s Mother†). This novel, the only one to be imminently published in English translation, remains within the excessively sentimental idiom of the Bengali 4. This list represents a distillation of suggestions to be found in the work of Jacques Derrida: see, e.g., â€Å"The Exorbitant. Question of Method,† Of Grammatology, trans. Spivak (Baltimore, 1976); â€Å"Limited Inc abc,† trans. Samuel Weber, Glyph 2 (1977); â€Å"Ou commence et comment finit un corps enseignant,† in Politiques de laphilosophie, ed. Dominique Grisoni (Paris, 1976); and my â€Å"Revolutions That as Yet Have No Model: Derrida’s ‘Limited Inc,’ † Diacritics 10 (Dec. 1980), and â€Å"Sex and History in Wordsworth’s The Prelude (1805) IXXIII† (forthcoming in Tern Studies in Literature and Language). 5. It is a sign of E. M. Forster’s acute perception of India that A Pussage to India contains a glimpse of such an ex-orbitant tribal in the figure of the punkha puller in the courtroom. 6. Mahasveta, Agnigarbha (Calcutta, 1978), p. 8. 384 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak â€Å"Draupadi† novel of the last twenty-odd years.7 Yet in Aranyer Adhikar (â€Å"The Rights [or, Occupation] of the Forest†), a serially published novel she was writing almost at the same time, a significant change is noticeable. It is a meticulously researched historical novel about the Munda Insurrection of 1899-1900. Here Mahasveta begins putting together a prose that is a collage of literary Bengali, street Bengali, bureaucratic Bengali, tribal Bengali, and the languages of the tribals. Since the Bengali script is illegible except to the approximately 25 literate percent of the about 90 million speakers of Bengali, a large number of whom live in Bangladesh rather than in West Bengal, one cannot speak of the â€Å"Indian† reception of Mahasveta’s work but only of its Bengali receptiom8 Briefly, that reception can be described as a general recognition of excellence; skepticism regarding the content on the part of the bourgeois readership; some accusations of extremism from the electoral Left; and admiration and a sense of solidarity on the part of the nonelectoral Left. Any extended reception study would consider that West Bengal has had a Left-Front government of the united electoral Communist parties since 1967. Here suffice it to say that Mahasveta is certainly one of the most important writers writing in India today. Any sense of Bengal as a â€Å"nation† is governed by the putative identity of the Bengali l a n g ~ a g e(.M~ eanwhile, Bengalis dispute if the purest Bengali is that of Nabadwip or South Calcutta, and many of the twenty-odd developed dialects are incomprehensible to the â€Å"general speaker.†) In 1947, on the eve of its departure from India, the British government divided Bengal into West Bengal, which remained a part of India, and East Pakistan. Punjab was similarly divided into East Punjab (India) and West Pakistan. The two parts of Pakistan did not share ethnic or linguistic ties and were separated by nearly eleven hundred miles. The division was made on the grounds of the concentration of Muslims in these two parts of the subcontinent. Yet the Punjabi Muslims felt themselves to be more â€Å"Arab† because they lived in the area where the first Muslim emperors of India had settled nearly seven hundred years ago and also because of their proximity to West Asia (the Middle 7.For a discussion of the relationship between academic degrees in English and the production of revolutionary literature, see my â€Å"A Vulgar Inquiry into the Relationship between Academic Criticism and Literary Production in West Bengal† (paper delivered at the Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association, Houston, 1980). 8. These figures are an average of the 1971 census in West Bengal and the projected figure for the 1974 census in Bangladesh. 9. See Dinesh Chandra Sen, History ofBengali Language and Literature (Calcutta, 191 1 ) . A sense of Bengali literary nationalism can be gained from the (doubtless apocryphal) report that, upon returning from his first investigative tour of India, Macaulay remarked: â€Å"The British Crown presides over two great literatures: the English and the Bengali.† Critical Inquiry Winter 1981 385 East). The Bengali Muslims-no doubt in a class-differentiated way-felt themselves constituted by the culture of Bengal. Bengal has had a strong presence of leftist intellectualism and struggle since the middle of the last century, before, in fact, the word â€Å"Left† entered our political shorthand.1 ° West Bengal is one of three Communist states in the Indian Union. As such, it is a source of considerable political irritation to the central government of India. (The individual state governments have a good deal more autonomy under the Indian Constitution than is the case in the U.S.) Although officially India is a Socialist state with a mixed economy, historically it has reflected a spectrum of the Right, from military dictatorship to nationalist class benevolence. The word â€Å"democracy† becomes highly interpretable in the context of a largely illiterate, multilingual, heterogeneous, and unpoliticized electorate. In the spring of 1967, there was a successful peasant rebellion in the Naxalbari area of the northern part of West Bengal. According to Marcus Franda, â€Å"unlike most other areas of West Bengal, where peasant movements are led almost solely by middle-class leadership from Calcutta, Naxalbari has spawned an indigenous agrarian reform leadership led by the lower classes† including tribal cultivator^.^^ This peculiar coalition of peasant and intellectual sparked off a number of Naxalbaris all over India.12 The target of these movements was the long-established oppression of the landless peasantry and itinerant farm worker, sustained through an unofficial government-landlord collusion that too easily circumvented the law. Indeed, one might say that legislation seemed to have an eye to its own future circumvention. It is worth remarking that this coalition of peasant and intellectual-with long histories of apprenticeship precisely on the side of the intellectual-has been recuperated in the West by both ends of the polarity that constitutes a â€Å"political spectrum.† Bernard-Henri Levy, the ex-Maoist French â€Å"New Philosopher,† has implicitly compared it to the May 1968 â€Å"revolution† in France, where the students joined the workers. 13 In France, however, the student identity of the movement had remained clear, and the student leadership had not brought with it sustained efforts to undo the privilege of the intellectual. On the other hand, â€Å"in much the same manner as many American college presidents 10. See Gautam Chattopadhyay, Communism and the Freedom Movement in Bengal (New Delhi, 1970). 11. Marcus F. Franda, RadicalPolitics in West Bengal (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), p. 153. Iam grateful to Michael Ryan for having located this accessible account of the Naxalbari movement. 12. See Samar Sen et al., eds., Naxalbari and After: A Frontier Anthology, 2 vols. (Calcutta, 1978). 13. See Bernard-Henri Levy, Bangla Desh: Nationalisme duns la rivolution (Paris, 1973). 386 Gayatm’ Chakravorty Spivak â€Å"Draupadi† have described the protest of American students, Indian political and social leaders have explained the Naxalites (supporters of Naxalbari) by referring to their sense of alienation and to the influence of writers like Marcuse and Sartre which has seemingly dominated the minds of young people throughout the world in the 1960s.†14 It is against such recuperations that I would submit what I have called the theme of class deconstruction with reference to the young gentlemen revolutionaries in â€Å"Draupadi.† Senanayak remains fixed within his class origins, which are similar to those of the gentlemen revolutionaries. Correspondingly, he is contained and judged fully within Mahasveta’s story; by contrast, the gentlemen revolutionaries remain latent, underground. Even their leader’s voice is only heard formulaically within Draupadi’s solitude. I should like to think that it is because they are so persistently engaged in undoing class containment and the opposition between reading (book learning) and doing-rather than keeping the two aesthetically forever separate-that they inhabit a world whose authority and outline no text-including Mahasveta’s-can encompass. In 1970, the implicit hostility between East and West Pakistan flamed into armed struggle. In 1971, at a crucial moment in the struggle, the armed forces of the government of India were deployed, seemingly because there were alliances between the Naxalites of West Bengal and the freedom fighters of East Bengal (now Bangladesh). â€Å"If a guerrillastyle insurgency had persisted, these forces would undoubtedly have come to dominate the politics of the movement. It was this trend that the Indian authorities were determined to pre-empt by intervention.† Taking advantage of the general atmosphere of jubilation at the defeat of West Pakistan, India’s â€Å"principal national rival in South Asia†15 (this was also the first time India had â€Å"won a war† in its millennia1 history), the Indian prime minister was able to crack down with exceptional severity on the Naxalites, destroying the rebellious sections of the rural population, most significantly the tribals , as well. The year 1971 is thus a point of reference in Senanayak’s career. This is the setting of â€Å"Draupadi.† The story is a moment caught between two deconstructive formulas: on the one hand, a law that is fabricated with a view to its own transgression, on the other, the undoing of the binary opposition between the intellectual and the rural struggles. In order to grasp the minutiae of their relationship and involvement, one must enter a historical micrology that no foreword can provide. 14. Franda, Radical Politics, pp. 163-64. See also p. 164 n.22. 15. Lawrence Lifschultz, ~a@ladesh: The unfinished Revolution (London, 1979),pp. 25, 26. Critical Inquiry Winter 1981 387 Draupadi is the name of the central character. She is introduced to the reader between two uniforms and between two versions of her name: Dopdi and Draupadi. It is either that as a tribal she cannot pronounce her own Sanskrit name (Draupadi), or the tribalized form, Dopdi, is the proper name of the ancient Draupadi. She is on a list of wanted persons, yet her name is not on the list of appropriate names for the tribal women. The ancient Draupadi is perhaps the most celebrated heroine of the Indian epic Mahabharata. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are the cultural credentials of the so-called Aryan civilization of India. The tribes predate the Aryan invasion. They have no right to heroic Sanskrit names. Neither the interdiction nor the significance of the name, however, must be taken too seriously. For this pious, domesticated Hindu name was given Dopdi at birth by her mistress, in the usual mood of benevolence felt by the oppressor’s wife toward the tribal bond servant. It is the killing of this mistress’ husband that sets going the events of the story. And yet on the level of the text, this elusive and fortuitous name does play a role. To speculate upon this role, we might consider the Mahabharata itself in its colonialist function in the interest of the so-called Aryan invaders of India. It is an accretive epic, where the â€Å"sacred† geography of an ancient battle is slowly expanded by succeeding generations of poets so that the secular geography of the expanding Aryan colony can present itself as identical with it and thus justify itself.16 The complexity of this vast and anonymous project makes it an incomparably more heterogeneous text than the Ramayana. Unlike the Ramayana, for example, the Mahabharata contains cases of various kinds of kinship structure and various styles of marriage. And in fact it is Draupadi who provides the only example of polyandry, not a common system of marriage in India. She is married to the five sons of the impotent Pandu. Within a patriarchal and patronymic context, she is exceptional, indeed â€Å"singular† in the sense of odd, unpaired, uncoupled.17 Her husbands, since they are husbands rather than lovers, are legitimately pluralized. No acknowledgment of paternity can secure the Name of the Father for the child of such a mother. Mahasveta’s story questions this â€Å"singularity† by placing Dopdi first in a comradely, activist, monogamous marriage and then in a situation of multiple rape. In the epic, Draupadi’s legitimized pluralization (as a wife among husbands) in singularity (as a possible mother or harlot) is used to demonstrate male glory. She provides the occasion for a violent transaction between men, the efficient cause of the crucial battle. Her eldest hus- 16. For my understanding of this aspect of the Mahabharata, I am indebted to Romila Thapar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. 17. I borrow this sense of singularity from Jacques Lacan, â€Å"Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter,’ † trans. Jeffrey Mehlman, Yak French Studies 48 (1972): 53, 59. 388 Gayatm’ Chakravorty Spivak â€Å"Draupadi† band is about to lose her by default in a game of dice. He had staked all he owned, and â€Å"Draupadi belongs within that all† (Mahabharata 65:32). Her strange civil status seems to offer grounds for her predicament as well: â€Å"The Scriptures prescribed one husband for a woman; Draupadi is dependent on many husbands; therefore she can be designated a prostitute. There is nothing improper in bringing her, clothed or unclothed, into the assembly† (65:35-36). The enemy chief begins to pull at Draupadi’s sum’. Draupadi silently prays to the incarnate Krishna. The Idea of Sustaining Law (Dharma) materializes itself as clothing, and as the king pulls and pulls at her sum’, there seems to be more and more of it. Draupadi is infinitely clothed and cannot be publicly stripped. It is one of Krishna’s miracles. Mahasveta’s story rewrites this episode. The men easily succeed in stripping Dopdi-in the narrative it is the culmination of her political punishment by the representatives of the law. She remains publicly naked at her own insistence. Rather than save her modesty through the implicit intervention of a benign and divine (in this case it would have been godlike) comrade, the story insists that this is the place where male leadership stops. It would be a mistake, I think, to read the modern story as a refutation of the ancient. Dopdi is (as heroic as) Draupadi. She is also what Draupadi-written into the patriarchal and authoritative sacred text as proof of male power-ould not be. Dopdi is at once a palimpsest and a contradiction. There is nothing â€Å"historically implausible† about Dopdi’s attitudes. When we first see her, she is thinking about washing her hair. She loves her husband and keeps political faith as an act of faith toward him. She adores her forefathers because they protected their women’s honor. (It should be recalled that this is thought in the context of American soldiers breeding bastards.) It is when she crosses the sexual differential into the field of what could only happen to a woman that she emerges as the most powerful â€Å"subject,† who, still using the language of sexual â€Å"honor,† can derisively call herself â€Å"the object of your search,† whom the author can describe as a terrifying superobject-â€Å"an unarmed target.† As a tribal, Dopdi is not romanticized by Mahasveta. The decision makers among the revolutionaries are, again, â€Å"realistically,† bourgeois young men and women who have oriented their book learning to the land and thus begun the long process of undoing the opposition between book (theory or â€Å"outside†) and spontaneity (practice or â€Å"inside†). Such fighters are the hardest to beat, for they are neither tribal nor gentlemen. A Bengali reader would pick them out by name among the characters: the one with the aliases who bit off his tongue; the ones who helped the couple escape the army cordon; the ones who neither smoke nor drink tea; and, above all, Arijit. His is a fashionable first name, tinsel Sanskrit, with no allusive paleonymy and a meaning that fits the story a bit too well: victorious over enemies. Yet it is his voice that gives Dopdi the courage to save not herself but her comrades. Of course, this voice of male authority also fades. Once Dopdi enters, in the final section of the story, the postscript area of lunar flux and sexual difference, she is in a place where she will finally actfor herself in not â€Å"acting,† in challenging the man to (en)counter her as unrecorded or misrecorded objective historical monument. The army officer is shown as unable to ask the authoritative ontological question, What is this? In fact, in the sentence describing Dopdi’s final summons to the sahib’s tent, the agent is missing. I can be forgiven if I find in this an allegory of the woman’s struggle within the revolution in a shifting historical moment. As Mahasveta points out in an aside, the tribe in question is the Santal, not to be confused with the at least nine other Munda tribes that inhabit India. They are also not to be confused with the so-called untouchables, who, unlike the tribals, are Hindu, though probably of remote â€Å"non-Aryan† origin. In giving the name Harijan (â€Å"God’s people†) to the untouchables, Mahatma Gandhi had tried to concoct the sort of pride and sense of unity that the tribes seem to possess. Mahasveta has followed the Bengali practice of calling each so-called untouchable caste by the name of its menial and unclean task within the rigid structural functionalism of institutionalized Hinduism.18 I have been unable to reproduce this in my translation. Mahasveta uses another differentiation, almost on the level of caricature: the Sikh and the Bengali. (Sikhism was founded as a reformed religion by Guru Nanak in the late fifteenth century. Today the roughly 9 million Sikhs of India live chiefly in East Punjab, at the other end of the vast Indo-Gangetic Plain from Bengal. The tall, muscular, turbanned, and bearded Sikh, so unlike the slight and supposedly intellectual Bengali, is the stereotyped butt of jokes in the same way as the Polish community in North America or the Belgian in France.) Arjan Singh, the diabetic Sikh captain who falls back on the Granth-sahib (the Sikh sacred book-I have translated it â€Å"Scripture†) and the â€Å"five Ks† of the Sikh religion, is presented as all brawn and no brains; and the wily, imaginative, corrupt Bengali Senanayak is of course the army officer full of a Keatsian negative capability.lg The entire energy of the story seems, in one reading, directed toward breaking the apparently clean gap between theory and practice in 18. As a result of the imposition of the capitalist mode of production and the Imperial Civil Service, and massive conversions of the lowest castes to Christianity, the invariable identity of caste and trade no longer holds. Here, too, there is the possibility of a taxonomy micrologically deconstructive of the caste-class opposition, functioning heterogeneously in terms of the social hierarchy. 19. If indeed the model for this character is Ranjit Gupta, the notorious inspector general of police of West Bengal, the delicate textuality, in the interest of a political position, of Senanayak’s delineation in the story takes us far beyond the limits of a referencea clef: I am grateful to Michael Ryan for suggesting the possibility of such a reference. 390 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak â€Å"Draupadi† Senanayak. Such a clean break is not possible, of course. The theoretical production of negative capability is a practice; the practice of mowing down Naxalites brings with it a theory of the historical moment. The assumption of such a clean break in fact depends upon the assumption that the individual subject who theorizes and practices is in full control. At least in the history of the Indo-European tradition in general, such a sovereign subject is also the legal or legitimate subject, who is identical with his stable p a t r o n ymi ~ .I~t ~m ight therefore be interesting that Senanayak is not given the differentiation of a first name and surname. His patronymic is identical with his function (not of course by the law of caste): the common noun means â€Å"army chief.† In fact, there is the least hint of a doubt if it is a proper name or a common appellation. This may be a critique of the man’s apparently self-adequate identity, which sustains his theory-practice juggling act. If so, it goes with what I see as the project of the story: to break this bonded identity with the wedge of an unreasonable fear. If our certitude of the efficient-information-retrieval and talk-to-the-accessible approach toward Third-World women can be broken by the wedge of an unreasonable uncertainty, a feeling that what we deem gain might spell loss and that our practice should be forged accordingly, then we would share the textual effect of â€Å"Draupadi† with Senanayak. The italicized words in the translation are in English in the original. It is to be noticed that the fighting words on both sides are in English. Nation-state politics combined with multinational economies produce war. The language of war–offense and defense-is international. English is standing in here for that nameless and heterogeneous world language. The peculiarities of usage belong to being obliged to cope with English under political and social pressure for a few centuries. Where, indeed, is there a â€Å"pure† language? Given the nature of the struggle, there is nothing bizarre in â€Å"Comrade D~ p d i . † ~Itl i s part of the undoing of opposites-intellectual-rural, tribalist-internationalist-that is the wavering constitution of â€Å"the underground,† â€Å"the wrong side† of the law. On the right side of the law, such deconstructions, breaking down national distinctions, are operated through the encroachment of kingemperor or capital. 20. The relationship between phallocentrism, the patriarchy, and clean binary oppositions is a pervasive theme in Derrida’s critique of the metaphysics of presence. See my â€Å"Unmaking and Making in To the Lighthouse,† in Women and Language in Literature and Society, ed. Sally McConnell-Ginet, Ruth Borker, and Nelly Furman (New York, 1980). 21. â€Å"My dearest Sati, Through the walls and the miles that separate us I can hear you saying, ‘In Sawan it will be two years since Comrade left us.’ The other women will nod. It is you who have taught them the meaning of Comrade† (Mary Tyler, â€Å"Letter to a Former Cell-Mate,† in Naxalban and After, 1 :307; see also Tyler, My Years in an Indian Prison [Harmondsworth, 19771). Critical Inquiry Winter 1981 391 The only exception is the word â€Å"sahib.† An Urdu word meaning â€Å"friend,† it came to mean, almost exclusively in Bengali, â€Å"white man.† It is a colonial word and is used today to mean â€Å"boss.† I thought of Kipling as I wrote â€Å"Burra Sahib† for Senanayak. In the matter of â€Å"translation† between Bengali and English, it is again Dopdi who occupies a curious middle space. She is the only one who uses the word â€Å"counter† (the â€Å"n† is no more than a nasalization of the diphthong â€Å"ou†). As Mahasveta explains, it is an abbreviation for â€Å"killed by police in an encounter,† the code description for death by police torture. Dopdi does not understand English, but she understands this formula and the word. In her use of it at the end, it comes mysteriously close to the â€Å"proper† English usage. It is the menacing appeal of the objectified subject to its politico-sexual enemy-the provisionally silenced master of the subject-object dialectic-to encounter- â€Å"counter†-her. What is it to â€Å"use† a language â€Å"correctly† without â€Å"knowing† it? We cannot answer because we, with Senanayak, are in the opposite situation. Although we are told of specialists, the meaning of Dopdi’s song remains undisclosed in the text. The educated Bengali does not know the languages of the tribes, and no political coercion obliges him to â€Å"know† it. What one might falsely think of as a political â€Å"privilege†- knowing English properly-stands in the way of a deconstructive practice of language-using it â€Å"correctly† through a political displacement, or operating the language of the other side. It follows that I have had the usual â€Å"translator’s problems† only with the peculiar Bengali spoken by the tribals. In general we educated Bengalis have the same racist attitude toward it as the late Peter Sellers had toward our English. It would have been embarrassing to have used some version of the language of D. H. Lawrence’s â€Å"common people† or Faulkner’s blacks. Again, the specificity is micrological. I have used â€Å"straight English,† whatever that may be. Rather than encumber the story with footnotes, in conclusion I shall list a few items of information: Page 393: The â€Å"five Ks† are Kes (â€Å"unshorn hair†); kachh (â€Å"drawers down to the knee†); karha (â€Å"iron bangle†); kirpan (â€Å"dagger†); kanga (â€Å"comb†; to be worn by every Sikh, hence a mark of identity). Page 396: â€Å"Bibidha Bharati† is a popular radio program, on which listeners can hear music of their choice. The Hindi film industry is prolific in producing pulp movies for consumption in India and in all parts of the world where there is an Indian, Pakistani, and West Indian labor force. Many of the films are adaptations from the epics. Sanjeev Kumar is an idolized actor. Since it was Krishna who rescued Draupadi from her predicament in the epic, and, in the film the soldiers watch, Sanjeev Kumar encounters Krishna, there might be a touch of textual irony here. 392 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak â€Å"Draupadi† Page 397: â€Å"Panchayat† is a supposedly elected body of village selfgovernment. Page 399: â€Å"Champabhumi† and â€Å"Radhabhumi† are archaic names for certain areas of Bengal. â€Å"Bhumi† is simply â€Å"land.† All of Bengal is thus â€Å"Bangabhumi.† Page 399: The jackal following the tiger is a common image. Page 400: Modern Bengali does not distinguish between â€Å"her† and â€Å"his.† The â€Å"her† in the sentence beginning â€Å"No comrade will . . .† can therefore be considered an interpretati~n.~~ Page 401: A sari conjures up the long, many-pleated piece of cloth, complete with blouse and underclothes, that â€Å"proper† Indian women wear. Dopdi wears a much-abbreviated version, without blouse or underclothes. It is referred to simply as â€Å"the cloth.† Draupadi Name Dopdi Mejhen, age twenty-seven, husband Dulna Majhi (deceased), domicile Cherakhan, Bankrajharh, information whether dead or alive and/or assistance in arrest, one hundred rupees. . . An exchange between two liveried uniforms. FIRSTL IVERYW: hat’s this, a tribal called Dopdi? The list of names I brought has nothing like it! How can anyone have an unlisted name? SECONDD:raupadi Mejhen. Born the year her mother threshed rice at Surja Sahu (killed)’~a t Bakuli. Surja Sahu’s wife gave her the name. FIRST: These officers like nothing better than to write as much as they can in English. What’s all this stuff about her? SECONDM:ost notorious female. Long wanted in many. . . Dossier: Dulna and Dopdi worked at harvests, rotating between Birbhum, Burdwan, Murshidabad, and Bankura. In 1971, in the famous Operation Bakuli, when three villages were cordonned off and machine gunned, they too lay on the ground, faking dead. In fact, they were the main culprits. Murdering Surja Sahu and his son, occupying upper-caste wells and tubewells during the drought, not surrendering those three young men to the police. In all this they were the chief instigators. In the morning, at the time of the body count, the couple could not be found. The blood-sugar level of Captain Arjan Singh, the architect of Bakuli, rose at once and proved yet again that diabetes can be a result of anxiety and depression. Diabetes has twelve husbands-among them anxiety. Dulna and Dopdi went underground for a long time in a Neanderthal darkness. The Special Forces, attempting to pierce that dark by an armed search, compelled quite a few Santals in the various districts of West Bengal to meet their Maker against their will. By the Indian Con- 22. I am grateful to Soumya Chakravarti for his help in solving occasional problems of English synonyms and archival research. stitution, all human beings, regardless of caste or creed, are sacred. Still, accidents like this do happen. Two sorts of reasons: (I), the underground couple’s skill in self-concealment; ( 2 ) ,not merely the Santals but all tribals of the Austro-Asiatic Munda tribes appear the same to the Special Forces. In fact, all around the ill-famed forest of Jharkhani, which is under the jurisdiction of the police station at Bankrajharh (in this India of ours, even a worm is under a certain police station), even in the southeast and southwest corners, one comes across hair-raising details in the eyewitness records put together on the people who are suspected of attacking police stations, stealing guns (since the snatchers are not invariably well educated, they sometimes say â€Å"give up your chambers† rather than give up your gun), killing grain brokers, landlords, moneylenders, law officers, and bureaucrats. A black-skinned couple ululated like police sirens before the episode. They sang jubilantly in a savage tongue, incomprehensible even to the Santals. Such as: Samaray hijulenako mar goekope and. Hende rambra keche keche Pundi rambra keche keche This proves conclusively that they are the cause of Captain Arjan Singh’s diabetes. Government procedure being as incomprehensible as the Male Principle in Sankhya philosophy or Antonioni’s early films, it was Arjan Singh who was sent once again on Operation Forest Jharkhani. Learning from Intelligence that the above-mentioned ululating and dancing couple was the escaped corpses, Arjan Singh fell for a bit into a zombielike state and finally acquired so irrational a dread of black-skinned people that whenever he saw a black person in a ballbag, he swooned, saying â€Å"they’re killing me,† and drank and passed a lot of water. Neither uniform nor Scriptures could relieve that depression. At long last, under the shadow of apremuture and forced retirement, it was possible to present him at the desk of Mr. Senanayak, the elderly Bengali specialist in combat and extreme-left politics. Senanayak knows the activities and capacities of the opposition better than they themselves do. First, therefore, he presents an encomium on the military genius of the Sikhs. Then he explains further: Is it only the opposition that should find power at the end of the barrel of a gun? Arjan Singh’s power also explodes out of the male organ of a gun. Without a gun even the â€Å"five Ks† come to nothing in this day and age. These speeches he delivers to all and sundry. As a result, the fighting forces regain their confidence in the Army Handbook. It is not a book for everyone. It says that the most despicable and repulsive style of fighting is 394 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak â€Å"Draupadi† guerrilla warfare with primitive weapons. Annihilation at sight of any and all practitioners of such warfare is the sacred duty of every soldier. Dopdi and Dulna belong to the category of such fighters, for they too kill by means of hatchet and scythe, bow and arrow, etc. In fact, their fighting power is greater than the gentlemen’s. Not all gentlemen become experts in the explosion of â€Å"chambers†; they think the power will come out on its own if the gun is held. But since Dulna and Dopdi are illiterate, their kind have practiced the use of weapons generation after generation. I should mention here that, although the other side make little of him, Senanayak is not to be trifled with. Whatever hispractice, in theory he respects the opposition. Respects them because they could be neither understood nor demolished if they were treated with the attitude, â€Å"It’s nothing but a bit of impertinent game-playing with guns.† In order to destroy the enemy, become one. Thus he understood them by (theoretically) becoming one of them. He hopes to write on all this in the future. He has also decided that in his written work he will demolish the gentlemen and highlight the message of the harvest workers. These mental processes might seem complicated, but actually he is a simple man and is as pleased as his third great-uncle after a meal of turtle meat. In fact, he knows that, as in the old popular song, turn by turn the world will change. And in every world he must have the credentials to survive with honor. If necessary he will show the future to what extent he alone understands the matter in its proper perspective. He knows very well that what he is doing today the future will forget, but he also knows that if he can change color from world to world, he can represent the particular world in question. Today he is getting rid of the young by means of â€Å"apprehension and elimination,† but he knows people will soon forget the memory and lesson of blood. And at the same time, he, like Shakespeare, believes in delivering the world’s legacy into youth’s hands. He is Prospero as well. At any rate, information is received that many young men and women, batch by batch and on jeeps, have attacked police station after police station, terrified and elated the region, and disappeared into the forest of Jharkhani. Since after escaping from Bakuli, Dopdi and Dulna have worked at the house of virtually every landowner, they can efficiently inform the killers about their targets and announce proudly that they too are soldiers, rank and$le.Finally the impenetrable forest of Jharkhani is surrounded by real soldiers, the army enters and splits the battlefield. Soldiers in hiding guard the falls and springs that are the only source of drinking water; they are still guarding, still looking. On one such search, army informant Dukhiram Gharari saw a young Santal man lying on his stomach on a flat stone, dipping his face to drink water. The soldiers shot him as he lay. As the .303 threw him off spread-eagled and brought a bloody foam to his mouth, he roared â€Å"Ma-ho† and then went limp. They realized later that it was the redoubtable Dulna Majhi. What does â€Å"Ma-ho† mean? Is this a violent slogan in the tribal language? Even after much thought, the Department of Defense could not be sure. Two tribal-specialist types are flown in from Calcutta, and they sweat over the dictionaries put together by worthies such as Hoffmann-Jeffer and Golden-Palmer. Finally the omniscent Senanayak summons Chamru, the water carrier of the camp. He giggles when he sees the two specialists, scratches his ear with his â€Å"bidi,† and says, The Santals of Maldah did say that when they began fighting at the time of King Gandhi! It’s a battle cry. Who said â€Å"Ma-ho† here? Did someone come from Maldah? The problem is thus solved. Then, leaving Dulna’s body on the stone, the soldiers climb the trees in green camouflage. They embrace the leafy boughs like so many great god Pans and wait as the large red ants bite their private parts. To see if anyone comes to take away the body. This is the hunter’s way, not the soldier’s. But Senanayak knows that these brutes cannot be dispatched by the approved method. So he asks his men to draw the prey with a corpse as bait. All will come clear, he says. I have almost deciphered Dopdi’s song. The soldiers get going at his command. But no one comes to claim Dulna’s corpse. At night the soldiers shoot at a scuffle and, descending, discover that they have killed two hedgehogs copulating on dry leaves. Improvidently enough, the soldiers’ jungle scout Dukhiram gets a knife in the neck before he can claim the reward for Dulna’s capture. Bearing Dulna’s corpse, the soldiers suffer shooting pains as the ants, interrupted in their feast, begin to bite them. When Senanayak hears that no one has come to take the corpse, he slaps his anti-Fascist paperback copy of The Deputy and shouts, â€Å"What?† Immediately one of the tribal specialists runs in with a joy as naked and transparent as Archimedes’ and says, â€Å"Get up, sir! I have discovered the meaning of that ‘hende rambra’ stuff. It’s Mundari language.† Thus the search for Dopdi continues. In the forest belt of Jharkhani, the Operation continues-will continue. It is a carbuncle on the government’s backside. Not to be cured by the tested ointment, not to burst with the appropriate herb. In the first phase, the fugitives, ignorant of the forest’s topography, are caught easily, and by the law of confrontation they are shot at the taxpayer’s expense. By the law of confrontation, their eyeballs, intestines, stomachs, hearts, genitals, and so on become the food of fox, vulture, hyena, wildcat, ant, and worm, and the untouchables go off happily to sell their bare skeletons. They do not allow themselves to be captured in open combat in the next phase. Now it seems that they have found a trustworthy courier. Ten to one it’s Dopdi. Dopdi loved Dulna more than her blood. No doubt it is she who is saving the fugitives now. â€Å"They† is also a hypothesis. Why? 396 Gayatri Chakravorty Spiuak â€Å"Draupadi† How many went origznally? The answer is silence. About that there are many tales, many books in press. Best not to believe everything. How many killed in six years’ confrontation? The answer is silence. Why after confrontations are the skeletons discovered with arms broken or severed? Could armless men have fought? Why do the collarbones shake, why are legs and ribs crushed? Two kinds of answer. Silence. Hurt rebuke in the eyes. Shame on you! Why bring this up? What will be will be. . . . How many left in the forest? The answer is silence. A legzon? Is itjustzjiable to maintain a large battalion in that wild area at the taxpayer’s expense? Answer: Objection. â€Å"Wild area† is incorrect. The battalion is provided with supervised nutrition, arrangements to worship according to religion, opportunity to listen to â€Å"Bibidha Bharati† and to see Sanjeev Kumar and the Lord Krishna face-to-face in the movie This Is Life. No. The area is not wild. How many are left? The answer is silence. How many are left? Is there anyone at all? The answer is long. Item: Well, action still goes on. Moneylenders, landlords, grain brokers, anonymous brothel keepers, ex-informants are still terrified. The hungry and naked are still defiant and irrepressible. In some pockets the harvest workers are getting a better wage. Villages sympathetic to the fugitives are still silent and hostile. These events cause one to think. . . . Where in this picture does Dopdi Mejhen fit? She must have connections with the fugitives. The cause for fear is elsewhere. The ones who remain have lived a long time in the primitive world of the forest. They keep company with the poor harvest workers and the tribals. They must have forgotten book learning. Perhaps they are orienting their book learning to the soil they live on and learning new combat and survival techniques. One can shoot and get rid of the ones whose only recourse is extrinsic book learning and sincere intrinsic enthusiasm. Those who are working practically will not be exterminated so easily. Therefore Operation Jharkhani Forest cannot stop. Reason: the words of warning in the Army Handbook. Catch Dopdi Mejhen. She will lead us to the others. Dopdi was proceeding slowly, with some rice knotted into her belt. Critical Inquiry Winter 1981 397 Mushai Tudu’s wife had cooked her some. She does so occasionally. When the rice is cold, Dopdi knots it into her waistcloth and walks slowly. As she walked, she picked out and killed the lice in her hair. If she had some Kerosene, she’d rub it into her scalp and get rid of the lice. Then she could wash her hair with bakingsoda. But the bastards put traps at every bend of the falls. If they smell kerosene in the water, they will follow the scent. Dopdi! She doesn’t respond. She never responds when she hears her own name. She has seen in the Panchayat office just today the notice for the reward in her name. Mushai Tudu’s wife had said, â€Å"What are you looking at? Who is Dopdi Mejhen! Money if you give her up!† â€Å"How much?† â€Å"Two-hundred!† Oh God! Mushai’s wife said outside the office: â€Å"A lot of preparation this time. A-1 1 new policemen.† Hm. Don’t come again. Why? Mushai’s wife looked down. Tudu says that Sahib has come again. If they catch you, the village, our huts . . . They’ll burn again. Yes. And about Dukhiram . . . The Sahib knows? Shomai and Budhna betrayed us. Where are they? Ran away by train. Dopdi thought of something. Then said, Go home. I don’t know what will happen, if they catch me don’t know me. Can’t you run away? No. Tell me, how many times can I run away? What will they do if they catch me? They will counter me. Let them. Mushai’s wife said, We have nowhere else to go. Dopdi said softly, I won’t tell anyone’s name. Dopdi knows, has learned by hearing so often and so long, how one can come to terms with torture. If mind and body give way under torture, Dopdi will bite off her tongue. That boy did it. They countered him. When they counter you, your hands are tied behind you. All your bones are crushed, your sex is a terrible wound. Killed by police in an encounter. . .unknown male . . . age twenty-two . . . As she walked thinking these thoughts, Dopdi heard someone calling, Dopdi! She didn’t respond. She doesn’t respond if called by her own name. Here her name is Upi Mejhen. But who calls? 398 Gayatri Chakravo~S pivak â€Å"Draupadi† Spines of suspicion are always furled in her mind. Hearing â€Å"Dopdi† they stiffen like a hedgehog’s. Walking, she unrolls the$lm of known faces in her mind. Who? Not Shomra, Shomra is on the run. Shomai and Budhna are also on the run, for other reasons. Not Golok, he is in Bakuli. Is it someone from Bakuli? After Bakuli, her and Dulna’s names were Upi Mejhen, Matang Majhi. Here no one but Mushai and his wife knows their real names. Among the young gentlemen, not all of the previous batches knew. That was a troubled time. Dopdi is confused when she thinks about it. Operation Bakuli in Bakuli. Surja Sahu arranged with Biddibabu to dig two tubewells and three wells within the compound of his two houses. No water anywhere, drought in Birbhum. Unlimited water at Surja Sahu’s house, as clear as a crow’s eye. Get your water with canal tax, everything is burning. What’s my profit in increasing cultivation with tax money? Everything’s on fire. Get out of here. I don’t accept your Panchayat nonsense. Increase cultivation with water. You want half the paddy for sharecropping. Everyone is happy with free paddy. Then give me paddy at home, give me money, I’ve learned my lesson trying to do you good. What good did you do? Have I not given water to the village? You’ve given it to your kin Bhagunal. Don’t you get water? No. The untouchables don’t get water. The quarrel began there. In the drought, human patience catches easily. Satish and Jugal from the village and that young gentleman, was Rana his name?, said a landowning moneylender won’t give a thing, put him down. Surja Sahu’s house was surrounded at night. Surja Sahu had brought out his gun. Surja was tied up with cow rope. His whitish eyeballs turned and turned, he was incontinent again and again. Dulna had said, I’ll have the first blow, brothers. My greatgrandfather took a bit of paddy from him, and I still give him free labor to repay that debt. Dopdi had said, His mouth watered when he looked at me. I’ll pull out his eyes. Surja Sahu. Then a telegraphic message from Shiuri. Special train. Army. The jeep didn’t come up to Bakuli. March-march-march. The crunch-crunch-crunch of gravel under hobnailed boots. Cordon up. Commands on the mike. Jugal Mandal; Satish Mandal, Rana alias Prabir alias Dipak, Dulna Majhi-Dopdi Mejhen surrender surrender surrender. No surrender surrender. Mow-mowmow down the village. Putt-putt putt-puttcordite in the air-putt-putt-round the clock-putt-putt. Flame thrower. Bakuli is burning. More men and women, children . . .jre-jire. Close canal Critical Inquiry Winter 1981 399 approach. Over-over-over by nightfall. Dopdi and Dulna had crawled on their stomachs to safety. They could not have reached Paltakuri after Bakuli. Bhupati and Tapa took them. Then it was decided that Dopdi and Dulna would work around the Jharkhani belt. Dulna had explained to Dopdi, Dear, this is best! We won’t get family and children this way. But who knows? Landowner and moneylender and policemen might one day be wiped out! Who called her from the back today? Dopdi kept walking. Villages and fields, bush and rock-Public Works Department markers-sound of running steps in back. Only one person running. Jharkhani Forest still about two miles away. Now she thinks of nothing but entering the forest. She must let them know that the police have set up notices for her again. Must tell them that that bastard Sahib has appeared again. Must change hideouts. Also, the plan to do to Lakkhi Bera and Naran Bera what they did to Surja Sahu on account of the trouble over paying the field hands in Sandara must be cancelled. Shomai and Budhna knew everything. There was the urgency of great danger under Dopdi’s ribs. Now she thought there was no shame as a Santal in Shomai and Budhna’s treachery. Dopdi’s blood was the pure unadulterated black blood of Champabhumi. From Champa to Bakuli the rise and set of a million moons. Their blood could have been contaminated; Dopdi felt proud of her forefathers. They stood guard over their women’s blood in black armor. Shomai and Budhna are halfbreeds. The fruits of the war. Contributions to Radhabhumi by the American soldiers stationed at Shiandanga. Otherwise, crow would eat crow’s flesh before Santal would betray Santal.Footsteps at her back. The steps keep a distance. Rice in her belt, tobacco leaves tucked at her waist. Arijit, Malini, Shamu, Mantu-none of them smokes or even drinks tea. Tobacco leaves and limestone powder. Best medicine for scorpion bite. Nothing must be given away. Dopdi turned left. This way is the camp. Two miles. This is not the way to the forest. But Dopdi will not enter the forest with a cop at her back. I swear by my life. By my life Dulna, by my life. Nothing must be told. The footsteps turn left. Dopdi touches her waist. In her palm the comfort of a half-moon. A baby scythe. The smiths at Jharkhani are fine artisans. Such an edge we’ll put on it Upi, a hundred Dukhiram* Thank God Dopdi is not a gentleman. Actually, perhaps they have understood scythe, hatchet, and knife best. They do their work in silence. The lights of the camp at a distance. Why is Dopdi going this way? Stop a bit, it turns again. Huh! I can tell where I am if I wander all night with my eyes shut. I won’t go in the forest, I won’t lose him that way. I won’t outrun him. You fucking jackal of a cop, deadly afraid of death, 400 Gayatri Ch a k r a u o ~Sp iuak â€Å"Draupadi† you can’t run around in the forest. I’d run you out of breath, throw you in a ditch, and finish you off. Not a word must be said. Dopdi has seen the new camp, she has sat in the bus station, passed the time of day, smoked a â€Å"bidi† and found out how many police convoys had arrived, how many radio vans. Squash four, onions seven, peppers fifty, a straightforward account. This information cannot now be passed on. They will understand Dopdi Mejhen has been countered. Then they’ll run. Arijit’s voice. If anyone is caught, the others must catch the timing and change their hideout. If Comrade Dopdi arrives late, we will not remain. There will be a sign of where we’ve gone. No comrade will let the others be destroyed for her own sake. Arijit’s voice. The gurgle of water. The direction of the next hideout will be indicated by the tip of the wooden arrowhead under the stone. Dopdi likes and understands this. Dulna died, but, let me tell you, he didn’t lose anyone else’s life. Because this was not in our heads to begin with, one was countered for the other’s trouble. Now a much harsher rule, easy and clear. Dopdi returns-good; doesn’t return–bad. Change hideout. The clue will be such that the opposition won’t see it, won’t understand even if they do. Footsteps at her back. Dopdi turns again. These 3% miles of land and rocky ground are the best way to enter the forest. Dopdi has left that way behind. A little level ground ahead. Then rocks again. The anny could not have struck camp on such rocky terrain. This area is quiet enough. It’s like a maze, every hump looks like every other. That’s fine. Dopdi will lead the cop to the burning â€Å"ghat.† Patitpaban of Saranda had been sacrificed in the name of Kali of the Burning Ghats. APehend! A lump of rock stands up. Another. Yet another. The elderly Senanayak was at once triumphant and despondent. Ifyou want to destroy the enemy, become one. He had done so. As long as six years ago he could anticipate their every move. He still can. Therefore he is elated. Since he has kept up with the literature, he has read First Blood and seen approval of his thought and work. Dopdi couldn’t trick him, he is unhappy about that. Two sorts of reasons. Six years ago he published an article about information storage in brain cells. He demonstrated in that piece that he supported this struggle from the point of view of the field hands. Dopdi is a field hand. Veteran3ghter. Search and destroy. Dopdi Mejhefi is about to be apprehended. Will be destroyed. Regret. Halt! Dopdi stops short. The steps behind come around to the front. Under Dopdi’s ribs the canal dam breaks. No hope. Surja Sahu’s brother Rotoni Sahu. The two lumps of rock come forward. Shomai and Budhna. They had not escaped by train. Arijit’s voice. Just as you must know when you’ve won, you must also acknowledge defeat and start the activities of the next stage. Now Dopdi spreads her arms, raises her face to the sky, turns toward the forest, and ululates with the force of her entire being. Once, twice, three times. At the third burst the birds in the trees at the outskirts of the forest awake and flap their wings. The echo of the call travels far. Draupadi Mejhen was apprehended at 6:53P.M. It took an hour to get her to camp. Questioning took another hour exactly. No one touched her, and she was allowed to sit on a canvas camp stool. At 8:57 Senanayak’s dinner hour approached, and saying, â€Å"Make her. Do the needful,† he disappeared. Then a billion moons pass. A billion lunar years. Opening her eyes after a million light years, Draupadi, strangely enough, sees sky and moon. Slowly the bloodied nailheads shift from her brain. Trying to move, she feels her arms and legs still tied to four posts. Something sticky under her ass and waist. Her own blood. Only the gag has been removed. Incredible thirst. In case she says â€Å"water† she catches her lower lip in her teeth. She senses that her vagina is bleeding. How many came to make her? Shaming her, a tear trickles out of the corner of her eye. In the muddy moonlight she lowers her lightless eye, sees her breasts, and understands that, indeed, she’s been made up right. Her breasts are bitten raw, the nipples torn. How many? Four-five-six-seven-then Draupadi had passed out. She turns her eyes and sees something white. Her own cloth. Nothing else. Suddenly she hopes against hope. Perhaps they have abandoned her. For the foxes to devour. But she hears the scrape of feet. She turns her head, the guard leans on his bayonet and leers at her. Draupadi closes her eyes. She doesn’t have to wait long. Again the process of making her begins. Goes on. The moon vomits a bit of light and goes to sleep. Only the dark remains. A compelled spread-eagled still body. Active pistons of flesh rise and fall, rise and fall over it. Then morning comes. Then Draupadi Mejhen is brought to the tent and thrown on the straw. Her piece of cloth is thrown over her body. Then, after breakfast, after reading the newspaper and sending the radio message â€Å"Draupadi Mejhen apprehended,† etc., Draupadi Mejhen is ordered brought in. Suddenly there is trouble. Draupadi sits up as soon as she hears â€Å"Move!† and asks, Where do you want me to go? To the Burra Sahib’s tent. 402 Gayatm’ Chakravorty Spivak â€Å"Draupadi† Where is the tent? Over there. Draupadi fixes her red eyes on the tent. Says, Come, I’ll go. The guard pushes the water pot forward. Draupadi stands up. She pours the water down on the ground. Tears her piece of cloth with her teeth. Seeing such strange behavior, the guard says, She’s gone crazy, and runs for orders. He can lead the prisoner out but doesn’t know what to do if the prisoner behaves incomprehensibly. So he goes to ask his superior. The commotion is as if the alarm had sounded in a prison. Senanayak walks out surprised and sees Draupadi, naked, walking toward him in the bright sunlight with her head high. The nervous guards trail behind. What is this? He is about to cry, but stops. Draupadi stands before him, naked. Thigh and pubic hair matted with dry blood. Two breasts, two wounds. What is this? He is about to bark. Draupadi comes closer. Stands with her hand on her hip, laughs and says, The object of your search, Dopdi Mejhen. You asked them to make me up, don’t you want to see how they made me? Where are her clothes? Won’t put them on, sir. Tearing them. Draupadi’s black body comes even closer. Draupadi shakes with an indomitable laughter that Senanayak simply cannot understand. Her ravaged lips bleed as she begins laughing. Draupadi wipes the blood on her palm and says in a voice that is as terrifying, sky splitting, and sharp as her ululation, What’s the use of clothes? You can strip me, but how can you clothe me again? Are you a man? She looks around and chooses the front of Senanayak’s white bush shirt to spit a bloody gob at and says, There isn’t a man here that I should be ashamed. I will not let you put my cloth on me. What more can you do? Come on, counter me-come on, counter me-? Draupadi pushes Senanayak with her two mangled breasts, and for the first time Senanayak is afraid to stand before an unarmed target, terribly afraid.

Walmart and Employee Job satisfaction Research Paper

Walmart and Employee Job satisfaction - Research Paper Example Therefore, it has become a challenge for the human resource department and the management to make sure that the employees of the organization are motivated so that they are able to produce good results for the organization. This paper is about Wal-Mart which employs more than 2,000,000 employees all over America. The organization is facing employee has been facing employee dissatisfaction and low morale among its employee in several states in which it has its retail outlets. Employees are not happy with Wal-Mart because they say that it does not treat its employees. Workplace morale is essential for productive performance which is crucial for a company to succeed, but pitiable management results in unconstructive attitudes and performance at work (Sherman & Chappell, 1998). Low Morale Employees are frequently absent and do not like to come to work because they suffer from low morale because they feel that Wal-Mart is not appreciative of their hard work and their intense efforts at th e workplace. This absenteeism has caused undue pressure on other employees who have to do the work of two or three persons without any tangible benefits. Wal-Mart employees are not properly trained or empowered to handle the extra work and pressure which has caused low morale in most retail outlets (Latimer, Hempson, & Kendrick, 2011). Low morale of employees at Wal-Mart has caused employees to squabble and fight among themselves. Moreover, management of the Wal-Mart has not been successful in addressing this problem because they too lack the training to implement fair dispute resolutions. Despite Wal-Mart’s claim of 86% employee satisfaction, the attitude, body language and work performance of the employees do not substantiate this claim (Niesing, 2008). Low Wages Although Wal-Mart is one of the largest retailer’s in the world, its employees are among the lowest anywhere in America. Because of very low salaries and benefits Wal-Mart employees occasionally organize foo d drives for themselves as their extremely low wages create great hardships, and they are unable to meet expenses. Naturally when employees cannot make ends meet and are under constant financial pressure, then morale takes a nosedive. Morale had been quite low at Wal-Mart since the 1970’s when prices of all essential items registered a very sharp rise (Feenstra, 1998). Because of the low wages at Wal-Mart, the employees are forced to get government assistance in the form of food stamps and other subsidies. The wages paid by the corporation are not enough for even a single person to support himself, so it is not possible that a typical Wal-Mart employee could support a family without government assistance (Goetz & Swaminathan, 2006). Forbidden to form Unions Forming of Unions is explicitly forbidden for the employees for collective negotiations of their demands. Wal-Mart has issued statements that 86% of its employees are quite satisfied and happy with their jobs. If this is a fact, then Wal-Mart should allow the formation of unions without aggressive management interference. . When seeking employment at any retail outlet, the applicants are well aware of the fact that even discussion about unionization can get them instantly terminated. Despite this, with all the criticism that people have about the organization, it is an established fact that for any Wal Mart store that

Article summary on 'Quality Process' Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Summary on 'Quality Process' - Article Example One also realizes that quality control in the garment industry is very important because if it does not meet the standards of the buyer, it would mean lost sales for the company. Application to Course: Quality control is an important aspect of operations management. The Fault Analysis Card, which was introduced in the discussion is fundamental to the operations management system (Alagulakshmi & Vanitha, n.d., p. 3). What One Learned: One learned a lot about the quality control system in a garment company. One learned of the various approaches in quality control and the different quality control functions of the textile materials. The article also specified the quality-related problems in garment manufacturing. Assessment of the Article’s Content: The article is very informative. The data offered was presented in a manner that could easily be understood by the readers. The article presented valuable information on quality control in the garment industry. It also highlighted the importance of quality control in the industry. It emphasized the value of communication and training in coming up with an effective and efficient quality control system. Alagulakshmi, V., & Vanitha, K. S. (n.d.). Quality systems for garment manufacture . Retrieved from fibre2fashion.com:

Greek Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Greek Philosophy - Essay Example Protagoras' law - the person is a measure of all things - better than anything characterizes the changes in people's interests. New issues have been first of all appeared in the minds of persons, which acted mainly in Athens as teachers of all sciences and arts, which are required for active participation in public life, in the minds of sophists. The last are already not independent thinkers separated from each other, trying to understand the world and its development. They represent a new estate, which being engaged in training to eloquence and using logic arguments as arts, naturally in this business was supervised not with a pure aspiration to get the truth, but aspiration to shine and win in verbal dispute. Characteristic for this philosophy, dictated to sophists by conditions surrounding them and their position in life, are empiric-skeptical (with respect to questions of theoretical value) and utilitarian-egoistical (with respect to questions of practical actions) points of view . The content and volume of our knowledge are entirely defined by our own sensual perceptions. Such perceptions, being subjectively changeable, cannot make valid knowledge at all. Also our activity is always defined by minute needs.

Employers Duty of Care Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Employers Duty of Care - Essay Example From this study it is clear that Jake’s actions are actually within his scope of employment. According to Damewood, the duties and responsibilities of an auto shop service manager is â€Å"normally focused on satisfying the customers through correctly determining the problems with their vehicles and repairing them in a timely and cost-effective manner†. Although Herman identified that he should just focus on providing the free change oil service, the extra service provided by Jake ensures that the customers would be satisfied with his work. Further, any additional costs needed from checking the basics: the brakes, tires and transmission would be revenue for the shop. Jake could likewise just focus on the free change oil service, as advertised and advised by Herman. According to the paper Jake could seek the car owners’ permission to provide the basic checking services for extra charge that would provide revenue for the shop and would not necessarily cause unneces sary work slowdown for those car owners who opted not to avail of these extra services. In so doing, Jake would still be complying with the duties expected from his scope of employment and still adhere to the priorities set by Herman, his manager. As employer, Herman is responsible for Jake’s injury primarily since the injury was sustained while doing the responsibilities expected of him in the service department. According to U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, â€Å"employers are responsible for providing a safe and healthful workplace†. The injuries sustained by Jake form part of OSHA’s regulations that cover autobody repair and refinishing where injuries that were identified include â€Å"being struck by an object, struck against an object, and caught in an object,

Globale warming Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Globale warming - Essay Example One of the reasons for this is due to research conducted on global warming, where there are studies indicative of increasing temperatures all around the globe and there is a potential for the failure of temperature regulation around the globe. This is to imply that there is a high possibility, according to some weather scientists, that the mechanism that ensures the weather and climate remains stable within the atmosphere is likely to fail, in which case the temperatures will fall to a scenario of the legendary ice age (Carter 2008, p.182). This accounts for the larger percentage of the reason why there are varying opinions pertaining to global warming, whereas there are others such as research that looks into the erratic patterns of the weather and the climate following the large impact of global warming across the globe. This is to an extent that it is difficult to provide detailed information on how much change has occurred and even future trends of the world based on climate chan ge studies, where the effects of different causative agents of global warming are evaluated and their amount of damage assessed to ensure that the latest data is acquired and utilized adequately. With this in mind, there are also sceptical scientists that only focus on single aspects of global warming thus with every new research or study on the weather, there is a new opinion based on hypothetical situations. This will be discussed later when looking at the future of the world from the perspective of global warning. Problem To understand the concept of global warming and even the theory of global warming, there is a need to look at the evidence presented by different researches as to how global warming works and affects the world. With this in mind, scientists have discovered that humans are the greatest cause of global warming, where they do not cause it by their state of being but through their activities, both economic and social. As a result, the temperatures of the earth have increased over the past 250 years at a steady pace, but this is not to mean that there are no other factors causing this. First looking at this reveals that burning fossil fuels for energy and heat is part of what causes global warming by releasing carbon dioxide which traps a layer of warm air (Jacobson 2004, p.2910). Findings that brought this to light states that a combination of human activities and natural causes has resulted in the rapid in surface temperature rise (Zuo et al 2012, p.3432). However, there are also other findings that refute and support this at the same time in that there are natural occurrences and human activities that have significantly contributed to the cooling of the earth meaning that a form of balance to the global temperature belt is returning including chloral-flouro-carbons. These include eruptions of mountains as seen in the 1991 case of Mt. Pinatubo, which lowered global temperatures for a number of years (Soden et al, 2002). On a similar note rese arch has also found that global warming is not necessarily a bad thing based on studies and evidence presented by various scientists. As such, there have been findings that since 1860 to date, there has been roughly an increase in global

Sales Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 5

Sales Management - Essay Example There is a growing body of evidences that argue about the nature of sales ethics and claims in to be oxymoron; however, another school of thought believe that sales ethics are practically followed within the business world and opposes the impression that these are only formal expressions of the company values to built its better image3. The following essay aims to discuss the general conception about the sales ethics that deem them as oxymoron. In this regard, the essay also explores different situations where the sales personnel have to decide whether to practically follow the described ethical values and principles of their company or prefer the interest of company in terms of increasing sales volume. The essay basically opposes the notion that sales ethics are oxymoron and provides the arguments to support this standpoint. The essay strives to explain how sales ethics can act beyond the formal descriptions to support the products and companies’ image. At present there are large inspections about the companies’ business that puts pressure upon them to fulfil the ethical requirements and follow the basic ethical principles. These principles ought to be straight forward, reasonable and clear so that the companies could deliver the same values to the customers. The companies are expected to respect these values because it is generally accepted notion that the societies giving due attention and value to these principles can prosper and develop significantly. Hence, the issue of the fulfilment of the ethical values becomes very important in this scenario and the companies have to draw a clear line between the theory and practice of the ethical values4. The customers of today’s technology driven world have more choices in front of them as compared with the consumers of the past. The international availability of products options have made them more demanding and

Internet Banking Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Internet Banking - Assignment Example Internet banking is offered today by all leading banks in UK, though the extent of usage and the features offered by the banks vary and is limited. Internet is available at more than 42% of the homes in UK in 2002 (National Statistics, 2002). Internet is now being used by more than 50% of the population in the UK from their home and they are connected reasonably high speeds of connectivity which enables them to make use of any of the currently available service on the net. Internet banking however has not been adopted by about 30% of the customers to a larger extent. While most of the people make use of the internet banking to look up their balances and to see whether the expected credit or debit has taken place. This avoids may be a walk down to the bank or possibly a call to know the status of the account. Most of the banking customers do not use internet banking for money transfers on large scale. Still they believe on old instruments like the cheques or the other standing instruc tions though they are getting implemented using electronic means more and more. It is also true still that most people access internet to access their emails and of course do some shopping. In UK 70% of the people use it for email and for seeking information on products and services; while 60% come in only to do general browsing. The number of people using internet for banking is pretty limited. Paying or purchasing over the internet which would also be using services of the bank is around 38% of the adults. The adult group itself is about 55% of all adults who are in UK who really access the internet. Out of the population this is still a minority since most of the young between 14 and 20 years access the internet much more widely than the rest of the groups. Interactive systems are a fusion of People, Activities, Contexts and Technologies (David Benyon et al, Nov 2004). The usage spread in UK also indicates the design of the internet and the sites thereof, are dependent on the psychology of the human beings using the same. This is naturally, dependent on the age of the user and on the aims of the user. That is why, we find more people using it for emails in the case of adults whereas among the younger lot, we find that the usage is more towards education and other browsing activities. The Interactive systems need to necessarily take care of this variation in interest and should also keep in mind the adult concepts of security which is primary for internet banking exercises. Usage issues in Internet Banking Most of the banking sites are pretty secure at 128 bit encryption. They are also designed in line with the principles of interactive design. Most of the sites do not go beyond the 4 colors doctrine which is recommended for usage in any web site. By using up to a maximum of four colors, the site is easier to read or work on and do not cause any irritation to the user. Internet banking continues to be a query point where people tend to go and check their balances and possible credits or debits only. Transactions are not happening as expected though it is easier to do over the net. Some of the issues that are faced by the customers include: 1. Comfort of use for lay men. Human centered

The Bluetooth SIG and specifications Essay Example for Free

The Bluetooth SIG and specifications Essay If the success of Bluetooth is measured by its initial interest alone then its prominence has already been assured. Before products were on sale, hundreds of companies joined the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) and the Bluetooth brand became recognized worldwide. Before investigating the technology further it is appropriate to comment about the role played by the SIG, the administrative structure of which is outlined in Figure 3. With membership of the SIG nearing 2500 members it is only right to look at how the SIG works to promote, shape and define the specification and position Bluetooth in the market place. Positioning of the technology is important when you consider other wireless technologies that share the same ISM band, e.g. IEEE802.11b, HomeRF and DECT. Differentiation is key in avoiding confusion of potential users. Figure 3: Bluetooth SIG Administrative Structure In 1994, Ericsson Mobile Communications began to examine alternatives to cables linking accessories with their mobile phones. This study produced the initial specification for wireless technology, with the Bluetooth SIG founded in February 1998 by the core promoters: Ericsson Mobile Communications AB. Intel Corp. IBM Corp. Toshiba Corp. Nokia Mobile Phones. The core promoters announced the global SIG in May 1998 and invited other companies to join as Bluetooth adopters. In July 1999 the core promoters published version 1.0 of the specification and further enlarged the core promoter group in December 1998 with the inclusion of: v Microsoft v Lucent (now Agere) v 3Com. v Motorola. The responsibility for the various Bluetooth specifications is in the hands of the individual technical working groups. Once a specification reaches a version level 0.5 it is made visible to associate members. An associate members must be recommended by a promoter, and submit a fee. When a specification reaches version 1.0 it gets a higher level of visibility. Now adopters have visibility and any company can become an adopter by joining the SIG, signing and submitting the membership agreement (see â€Å"Bluetooth†). The Bluetooth specifications are open specifications for wireless communications that are free to download and use; however to use it royalty free you do have to join the SIG. By joining the group you sign up to an adopter’s agreement sharing any patents essential for implementing Bluetooth. The specifications define minimum functionality allowing devices from different companies to communicate (see â€Å"Bluetooth†). . They provide the following: o  Ã‚   Protocol definitions for interoperability o  Ã‚   Host controller interface o  Ã‚   Bearer services for higher layer protocols o  Ã‚   Profiles o  Ã‚   Qualification o  Ã‚   Production test o  Ã‚   Brand book The Bluetooth specifications define the concept of a Personal Area Network (PAN), what they do not provide helps to position it in the ISM band. It is not focussed on Wide Area Networking (WAN) as it has a limited range and currently there is no hand over mechanism, though there is a working group. They do not provide implementation instructions at the application programming interfaces, user interfaces or a definition of hardware and software split. Although it could be argued there is guidance in the profiles’ specification. The rest of this section breaks down the specifications encompassing the key aspects of Bluetooth in order to explain the features (see â€Å"Bluetooth†). A.2.1 The Protocol Stack The Bluetooth specifications define not only a radio system but cover the underlying structure. The Core Specification contains a software protocol stack similar to the more familiar Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) standard reference model for communication protocol stacks. It permits applications to discover devices, the services they offer and permission to use these services. The stack is a sequence of layers with features crossing single or multiple layered boundaries. Figure 4 outlines the stack with each block corresponding to a Core Specification chapter. Other remaining chapters relate to compliance requirements, test modes and test control interface (see â€Å"Bluetooth†). If we ascend the stack, we first come across the fundamental component, the radio. The radio modulates and demodulates data for transmitting and receiving over the air. The operating band of the radio is divided into 1 MHz spaced channels with a chosen modulation scheme of Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying (GFSK). Each channel is specified to signal at 1mega symbols per second, equivalent to 1 Mb/s. Above the radio are the Baseband and Link Controller, they are responsible for controlling the physical links via the radio, and assembling the packets and controlling the frequency hopping (see â€Å"Bluetooth†. Progressing through the layers, the Link Manager (LM) controls and configures links to other devices. The Host Controller Interface (HCI) is above the LM layer and is probably one of the most important layers to consider as a designer. It handles communication between host and the module. The standard defines the HCI command packets that the host uses to control the module, the event packets used by the host to inform lower protocol layers of changes, the data packets for voice and data traffic between host and module and the transport layer used by the HCI packets. The transport layer can be USB (H2), RS232 (H3), UART (4) or a robust proprietary standard such as BCSP (BlueCore Serial Protocol). The Logical Link Control and Adaptation (L2CAP) is a multiplexor, adapting data from higher layers and converting between different packet sizes. The next 4 layers could be loosely grouped as communication interfaces. These are RFCOMM (Radio Frequency COMMunication port) which provides an RS232 like serial interface. Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and OBject EXchange (OBEX) are responsible for providing interfaces to other Communications Protocols. The final member of this rough grouping is the Telephony Control protocol Specification (TCS) providing telephony services. Service Discovery Protocol (SDP) lets devices discover the services available on another Bluetooth device (see â€Å"Bluetooth†). Figure 4: The Bluetooth Protocol Stack The application layer is probably obvious, but the standard provides Profiles laying out rules for how applications use the protocol stack, ensuring interoperability at application level (see â€Å"Bluetooth†).

Internet addiction among adolescents

Internet addiction among adolescents Internet addiction among adolescents Abstract Today’s world is a technology driven world, where all the people are linked to the use of internet in one way or the other. Mainly it is the adolescents who use the internet services the most, be it for the gaming purposes, studies or any other. But with the advent of internet technology, life has obviously become easier on the part of adolescents. Each of the innovation brings along with it many of the hurdles or risks. One of the main risks that are associated with the use of internet is internet addiction among adolescents. Keyword: Internet addiction, Adolescents, Internet technology, Internet services Internet addiction among adolescents The technological development of the internet in the initial stages was designed for the promotion of research and communication among various technological institutions. This is also linked to the usage of internet by the adolescents (Aydm, B., San, S. V, 2011). This is because, in the technological institutions, there were mainly the adolescents only who used the internet for the research purposes. But with the advent of new technological era, HCL Company made various handy browsers that made the usage of internet by the adolescents more flexible and appropriate (Hamid, 2015). Then eventually after the coming in of the smart phones, the usage of internet became more accessible to the adolescents. Diagnosis Clinical disorders have been the most fatal things that have been identified to date in regards to the excessive usage of internet. In the clinical disorders have, it is insomnia and depression that are the most common among adolescents who have excessive usage of the internet technologies (Aydm San, 2011). Insomnia is on the rise among adolescents who over use the internet because, they are deprived of the sleep as they all the time are glued to the internet. Moreover depression is on the rise among the adolescents (Esen et al., 2013). This is because most of the adolescents are inclined towards the usage of internet and mainly the social media. As a result, many of the adolescents engage themselves in the fake profiles. As a result, when the bitter truth is out, most of the people go in a state of depression. Thereby insomnia and depression are among the top most disorders that are linked to the internet addiction among adolescents. Correlation to Personality Behaviours, Preferences and Environments It has been found that whenever a person is stress or a stressful situation, people become stressed or engage themselves with the use of internet. This is something that is common among the adolescents. They immerse themselves in the cyber space in order to combat stress. Whereas some others who lack confidence level, escape themselves to online interaction. Also the personality traits like extroversion and high emotional instability are also some of the factors that are negatively correlated with internet addiction and are seen among the adolescents (Hariri et al, 2015). Among some others are insomnia and depression that affect the individuals or adolescents the most. There are various advantages that the internet has provided to the adolescents. Like with the use of internet, it became easier for the adolescents to learn through the e-books. Moreover, they also were able to learn by sitting at one place through video conferencing via the internet. This was one of the most valuable advantages that the adolescents had with the use of internet (Kuss et al, 2013). Though it also leads to an addiction among the adolescents, as instead of the books, they were more attracted towards the e-books. This lead to all time screen usage, which in a way is not useful in relation to the health parameters. Literature reviewed First group of Study As the use of technology is in the hands of the user, be it for the good or for the bad. It was seen with the advent of newer technologies that internet usage among the adolescents was increasing day by day, but on the wrong side. This is so because, the pornographic material was easily available on the internet and more and more adolescent’s age attracted towards it. This is also something that leads to internet addiction among the adolescents. In fact, it is the result of wrong usage of the technology only that the rise of cyber crime also increased (Israelashvili et al., 2012; Esen et al., 2013; Orsal et al., 2013). In the recent studies on the usage of internet, it was seen that almost 80% of the population comprises of the adolescents only who are addicted to the usage of internet and are a crime partner in most of the cyber crimes that occur all across the world. Second group of study Increase in the addiction of internet with adolescents, it was seen that there were many of the health problems also that came across. In China, it was seen that internet addiction has became the most significant mental health problem among the adolescents. The incidence rate of internet addiction among the Taiwan college students was 5.9% and almost 10.6 % among the Chinese college students. It was also seen that most of the Chinese adolescents who were addicted to the internet faced mental disorders like; they often became aggressive and also had some of the short term memory loss (Li et al., 2015; Sar et al., 2012; Usman et al., 2014). Third group of Study Some of the main domains of internet that are popular among the adolescents include, chatting rooms, e-mails, discussion forums etc. These are the main areas because most of the adolescents are attracted towards the usage of internet for the chatting or messaging purposes (Hariri et al., 2015; Esen et al., 2013; Aydm et al., 2011). The pitfalls were many when it was accessed in terms of the internet addiction. Like memory problems, health disorders and also the family problems that disturbed the overall life form of the individuals. In the research studies, it was found by many of the researchers that the common problems that existed among the adolescents who were addicted to the internet included, emotional sensitiveness, maladaptation, insomnia and also not been able to express themselves(Li et al., 2015). This is because most of the adolescents in this age are inclined towards the usage of social media. Thereby they get so much addicted towards it that they eventually face emotion al sensitiveness and barriers. A survey conducted by Young, 1996, depicted a graph that illustrated the usage of internet by the adolescents and how has increased over the years. Similarities First Similarity Apart from the social media, online gaming has been the most significant parameter linked with the internet that makes the adolescents linked to the internet all the times. Playing online games has increased the risk of being addicted to the internet by almost 2.7% every time. Previous researches have indicated that unlike the other kind of games forms like the browser and offline games, there are the online games that appear to have the high addictive potential. It is because of this only that vulnerable adolescents develop an addiction as a consequence of frequent engagement. Online games generally demand a large amount of the commitment and time investment and this is what makes the adolescents addicted to it (Esen et al., 2013; Aydm et al., 2011; Li et al., 2015; Orsal et al., 2013). Second Similarity Negativity was among the other important consequence that has been identified with the increased usage of the internet. With the internet addiction among the adolescents, they tend to go through various experiences that they relate to their real lives in one form or the other. Thereby in the process of relating, there arise many such situations when the person gets negative due to the higher usage of internet (Sar et al., 2012; Li et al., 2015). Moreover, this occurs because the viewpoint is consolidated towards a single side only. Third similarity Studies in different cultures have stated that internet addiction has only been seen as a concern in most of the cultures, rather than a benefit. As more and more time they spend on the internet, makes them have less time on practicing on their own. And as a result, they had lower grades as compared to the ones who did not use the internet (Li et al., 2015; Usman et al., 2014). This is the case when the other people in the conversation expect different way of reaction (Kuss et al., 2013; Hariri et al., 2014). The relationship among internet addiction and interpersonal problem is rapidly increasing day by day. These problems are mainly identified when the family members of the adolescents tend to complain about the adolescents who make excessive internet usage. Differences Gender Differences The studies conducted on the usage of the internet among the adolescents have suggested that there are gender differences that have been seen after the addiction to internet. The studies done by the Turkish university have put forth that the male counterparts are the ones who spend more time on the internet than the female ones. Though some of the studies also suggest that the female members are high in number. It was also seen that the addiction among the women on the internet was more on the shopping sites and the other areas (Aydm et al., 2011; Li et al., 2015; Usman et al., 2014; Sar et al., 2012). Whereas in case of males, the access to internet was made mainly too social media and gaming areas. Physical Differences The internet addicted adolescents are very less likely to engage in the health promoting behaviours and rather are mostly against it. As due to the excessive internet usage they are not able to keep themselves fit. In order to overcome this deficiency, most of the adolescents tend to take health supplements. These actually tend to decrease their health and thereby leaving the internet addict prone to the diseases. Thereby, there are many physical differences also that come across with internet addiction among adolescents (Israelashvili et al., 2012; Kuss et al., 2013; Esen et al., 2013). Work Differences Many of the employers have seen that the excessive usage of internet has potentially reduced the level of work, rather than enhancement of productivity. Employers who make lesser usage of internet tend to improve more on scale of performance. And the ones who are addicted to internet, most likely develop a tendency to work less and thereby become lethargic also. Moreover, excessive usage of internet also causes delay of work to be accomplished in a sooner time period (Hamid et al., 2015; Orsal et al., 2013). Thereby the need is that internet usage must be reduced while the adolescents are on work, so that distractions can be less. Thereby, these are the major differences that were encountered among different adolescents who are addicted to the internet. Discussion In order to identify that an adolescent is addicted to the internet or not, there are three basic classic mass media innovations (Aydm et al., 2012). These include surveillance, escape, companionship, identity and environment. It has been proved by many of the studies that the adolescents make the most usage of internet to reinforce relationships that at times also takes them into the negative room. It was stated that among the adolescents, college students are exposed to a higher risk of internet addiction (Usman et al., 2014). This is mainly due to the higher vulnerability of them using the internet for one or the other purpose in the college also. There are approximately 922.3 million, who represent 44% of the world internet user population. It has been one of the majorly growing concerns, as it is compliable to the health issues also. If talked about China, it is yet another country that is facing the charges of internet addiction among the adolescents. In order to combat the internet addiction, the governments of Japan, China and South Korea have set up the boot camps. These are helpful in providing the therapy to make the adolescents free of any kind of internet addiction (Israelashvili et al., 2012). Though there are many negatives that are seen among the adolescents with the use of internet, there are many of the advantages also. Unfortunately, Internet is misused by some of the groups of individuals if the adolescents get addicted to the internet for the learning and other useful purposes, then no more will it be known as addiction (Li et al., 2015). Rather when one can impart great knowledge from the use of internet if used for useful purposes. It has been identified in the studies from literature that if internet usage is made up to the mark by adolescents then it can reap better returns to them rather than making them an internet addict (Sar et al., 2012). To conclude, it can well be stated that it is in the hands of adolescents only whether to use the internet for their own convenience or other means. If it is used appropriately, then it will serve as a boon or otherwise a curse. Future Research and Studies The internet usage among adolescents is studied further by considering the various different racist. If university and school used only the sites which are related to the students and blocking all the other sites then it will be advantage for the students that they cannot rely on internet for longer period of time. Further research can be done on the usage of the internet by studying the different universities and combining the studies on the basis of age and sex. References Aydm, B., San, S. V. (2011). Internet addiction among adolescents. The role of self-esteem. Procedia- Social and Behavioural Science, 15, 3500-3505. Doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.04.325. Esen, B. K., Aktas, E., Tuncer, I. (2013). 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