SESSION 1

AUTHORS AND REPRESENTATIVE TEXTS FROM ASIA

A. Latiff Mohidin is a poet and a painter who was born in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan,
Malaysia. He has been known as a “Boy Wonder” since he was 11 because of the artistry of
his works. He has attended schools under various scholarships in Berlin, Germany; Paris,
France; and New York, USA. He is one of Malaysia’s most treasured living artists.
B. LITERARY WORK: “In the Midst of Hardship” is a poem that reminds us that life has its ups
and downs. It puts forward the idea that life is not always comfortable and safe. There are
good times and there are difficult or precarious times.
C. CRITICAL APPROACH: Formalism refers to a critical approach that analyzes, interprets,
or evaluates the inherent features of a text. These features include not only grammar and
syntax but also literary devices such as meter and figures of speech. The formalist
approach reduces the importance of a text’s historical, biographical, and cultural context.
D. QUESTIONS TO ASK:
1.) What is the structure of the piece?
2.) What imagery is used?
3.) What symbols help convey a message?
4.) What is the main theme of the literary work?
5.) What did you observe in the title and the final line of the poem?

In the Midst of Hardship

by Latiff Mohidin

At dawn they returned home

their soaky clothes torn
and approached the stove
their limbs marked by scratches
their legs full of wounds
but on their brows
there was not a sign of despair

The whole day and night just passed

they had to brave the horrendous flood
in the water all the time
between bloated carcasses
and tiny chips of tree barks
desperately looking for their son’s
albino buffalo that was never found

They were born amidst hardship

and grew up without a sigh or a complaint
now they are in the kitchen, making
jokes while rolling their cigarette leaves
 A. Arundhati Roy is an Indian author best known for her novel The God of Small Things (1997),
which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the best-selling book by a
nonexpatriate Indian author. She is also a political activist involved in human rights and
environmental causes.
B. LITERARY WORK: “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” is at once an aching love story and a
decisive remonstration. It is told in a whisper, in a shout, through tears and sometimes with a
laugh. Its heroes are people who have been broken by the world they live in and then rescued,
mended by love – and by hope. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
(goodreads.com)
C. CRITICAL APPROACH: Marxism is based on the political and economic theories of Karl
Marx, German philosopher (1818-1883). It deals with the struggles of social and economic
classes. The current struggle in modern history is the struggle between the rich (bourgeoisies)
and the poor (proletariat).
D. QUESTIONS TO ASK:
1. How does the socioeconomic status of Jahanara Begum and her family reflect class
struggles in the society portrayed in the excerpt?
2. Are there instances in the excerpt where characters are portrayed as being
exploited, either economically or socially?
3. In what ways does Anjum's unconventional lifestyle in the graveyard embody
themes of alienation and societal rejection?
4. How are different social classes represented in the excerpt, and how do characters
from various classes interact with each other?

An Excerpt from The Ministry of the Utmost Happiness

by Arundhati Roy

The first time she made her way past the crowd – the sellers of ittars and amulets, the custodians of pilgrims’
shoes, the cripples, the beggars, the homeless, the goats being fattened for slaughter on Eid and the knot of
quiet, elderly eunuchs who had taken up residence under a tarpaulin outside the shrine – and entered the tiny
red chamber, Jahanara Begum became calm. The street sounds grew faint and seemed to come from far
away. She sat in a corner with her baby asleep on her lap, watching people, Muslim as well as Hindu, come in
ones and twos, and tie red threads, red bangles and chits of paper to the grille around the tomb, beseeching
Sarmad to bless them. It was only after she noticed a translucent old man with dry, papery skin and a wispy
beard of spun light sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth, weeping silently as though his heart was broken,
that Jahanara Begum allowed her own tears to fall. This is my son, Aftab, she whispered to Hazrat Sarmad.
I’ve brought him here to you. Look after him. And teach me how to love him.

Hazrat Sarmad did.

***
For the first few years of Aftab’s life, Jahanara Begum’s secret remained safe. While she waited for his girl-part
to heal, she kept him close and was fiercely protective of him. Even after her younger son, Saqib, was born
she would not allow Aftab to stray very far from her on his own. It was not seen as unusual behaviour for a
woman who had waited so long and so anxiously for a son. When Aftab was five he began to attend the Urdu–
Hindi madrassa for boys in Chooriwali Gali (the bangle-seller’s lane). Within a year he could recite a good part
of the Quran in Arabic, although it wasn’t clear how much of it he understood – that was true of all the other
children too. Aftab was a better than average student, but even from the time he was very young it became
clear that his real gift was music. He had a sweet, true singing voice and could pick up a tune after hearing it
just once. His parents decided to send him to Ustad Hameed Khan, an outstanding young musician who taught
Hindustani classical music to groups of children in his cramped quarters in Chandni Mahal.

Little Aftab never missed a single class. By the time he was nine he could sing a good twenty minutes of bada
khayal in Raag Yaman, Durga and Bhairav and make his voice skim shyly off the flat rekhab in Raag Pooriya
Dhanashree like a stone skipping over the surface of a lake. He could sing Chaiti and Thumri with the
accomplishment and poise of a Lucknow courtesan. At first people were amused and even encouraging, but
soon the snickering and teasing from other children began: He’s a She. He’s not a He or a She. He’s a He and
a She. She-He, He-She Hee! Hee! Hee!

When the teasing became unbearable Aftab stopped going to his music classes. But Ustad Hameed, who
doted on him, offered to teach him separately, on his own. So the music classes continued, but Aftab refused
to go to school any more. By then Jahanara Begum’s hopes had more or less faded. There was no sign of
healing anywhere on the horizon. She had managed to put off his circumcision for some years with a series of
inventive excuses. But young Saqib was waiting in line for his, and she knew she had run out of time.
Eventually she did what she had to. She mustered her courage and told her husband, breaking down and
weeping with grief as well as relief that she finally had someone else to share her nightmare with.

Her husband, Mulaqat Ali, was a hakim, a doctor of herbal medicine, and a lover of Urdu and Persian poetry.
All his life he had worked for the family of another hakim – Hakim Abdul distillate of damask roses, was meant
to be a tonic. But people found that two tablespoons of the sparkling ruby-coloured syrup in a glass of cold milk
or even just plain water not only tasted delicious, but was also an effective defence against Delhi’s scorching
summers and the strange fevers that blew in on desert winds. Soon what had started out as medicine became
the most popular summer drink in the region. Rooh Afza became a prosperous enterprise and a household
name. For forty years it ruled the market, sending its produce from its headquarters in the old city as far south
as Hyderabad and as far west as Afghanistan. Then came Partition. God’s carotid burst open on the new
border between India and Pakistan and a million people died of hatred. Neighbours turned on each other as
though they’d never known each other, never been to each other’s weddings, never sung each other’s songs.
The walled city broke open. Old families fled (Muslim). New ones arrived (Hindu) and settled around the city
walls. Rooh Afza had a serious setback, but soon recovered and opened a branch in Pakistan. A quarter of a
century later, after the holocaust in East Pakistan, it opened another branch in the brand-new country of
Bangladesh. But eventually, the Elixir of the Soul that had survived wars and the bloody birth of three new
countries, was, like most things in the world, trumped by Coca-Cola.

Although Mulaqat Ali was a trusted and valued employee of Hakim Abdul Majid, the salary he earned was not
enough to make ends meet. So outside his working hours he saw patients at his home. Jahanara Begum
supplemented the family income with what she earned from the white cotton Gandhi caps she made and
supplied in bulk to Hindu shopkeepers in Chandni Chowk.

Mulaqat Ali traced his family’s lineage directly back to the Mongol Emperor Changez Khan through the
emperor’s second-born son, Chagatai. He had an elaborate family tree on a piece of cracked parchment and a
small tin trunk full of brittle, yellowed papers that he believed verified his claim and explained how descendants
of shamans from the Gobi Desert, worshippers of the Eternal Blue Sky, once considered the enemies of Islam,
became the forefathers of the Mughal dynasty that ruled India for centuries, and how Mulaqat Ali’s own family,
descendants of the Mughals, who were Sunni, came to be Shia. Occasionally, perhaps once every few years,
he would open his trunk and show his papers to a visiting journalist who, more often than not, neither listened
carefully nor took him seriously. At most the long interview would merit an arch, amusing mention in a weekend
special about Old Delhi. If it was a double spread, a small portrait of Mulaqat Ali might even be published along
with some close-ups of Mughal cuisine, long shots of Muslim women in burqas on cycle rickshaws that plied
the narrow filthy lanes, and of course the mandatory bird’s-eye view of thousands of Muslim men in white
skullcaps, arranged in perfect formation, bowed down in prayer in the Jama Masjid. Some readers viewed
pictures like these as proof of the success of India’s commitment to secularism and inter-faith tolerance. Others
with a tinge of relief that Delhi’s Muslim population seemed content enough in its vibrant ghetto. Still others
viewed them as proof that Muslims did not wish to ‘integrate’ and were busy breeding and organizing
themselves, and would soon become a threat to Hindu India. Those who subscribed to this view were gaining
influence at an alarming pace.

Regardless of what appeared or did not appear in the newspapers, right into his dotage Mulaqat Ali always
welcomed visitors into his tiny rooms with the faded grace of a nobleman. He spoke of the past with dignity but
never nostalgia. He described how, in the thirteenth century, his ancestors had ruled an empire that stretched
from the countries that now called themselves Vietnam and Korea all the way to Hungary and the Balkans,
from Northern Siberia to the Deccan plateau in India, the largest empire the world had ever known. He often
ended the interview with a recitation of an Urdu couplet by one of his favourite poets, Mir Taqi Mir:

Jis sar ko ghurur aaj hai yaan taj-vari ka

Kal uss pe yahin shor hai phir nauhagari ka

The head which today proudly flaunts a crown

Will tomorrow, right here, in lamentation drown

***

She lived in the graveyard like a tree. At dawn she saw the crows off and welcomed the bats home. At dusk
she did the opposite. Between shifts she conferred with the ghosts of vultures that loomed in her high
branches. She felt the gentle grip of their talons like an ache in an amputated limb. She gathered they weren’t
altogether unhappy at having excused themselves and exited from the story.

When she first moved in, she endured months of casual cruelty like a tree would – without flinching. She didn’t
turn to see which small boy had thrown a stone at her, didn’t crane her neck to read the insults scratched into
her bark. When people called her names – clown without a circus, queen without a palace – she let the hurt
blow through her branches like a breeze and used the music of her rustling leaves as balm to ease the pain.

It was only after Ziauddin, the blind imam who had once led the prayers in the Fatehpuri Masjid, befriended her
and began to visit her that the neighbourhood decided it was time to leave her in peace.

Long ago a man who knew English told her that her name written backwards (in English) spelled Majnu. In the
English version of the story of Laila and Majnu, he said, Majnu was called Romeo and Laila was Juliet. She
found that hilarious. “You mean I’ve made a khichdi of their story?” she asked. “What will they do when they
find that Laila may actually be Majnu and Romi was really Juli?” The next time he saw her, the Man Who Knew
English said he’d made a mistake. Her name spelled backwards would be Mujna, which wasn’t a name and
meant nothing at all. To this she said, “It doesn’t matter. I’m all of them, I’m Romi and Juli, I’m Laila and Majnu.
And Mujna, why not? Who says my name is Anjum? I’m not Anjum, I’m Anjuman. I’m a mehfil, I’m a gathering.
Of everybody and nobody, of everything and nothing. Is there anyone else you would like to invite? Everyone’s
invited.”

The Man Who Knew English said it was clever of her to come up with that one. He said he’d never have
thought of it himself. She said, “How could you have, with your standard of Urdu? What d’you think? English
makes you clever automatically?”

He laughed. She laughed at his laugh. They shared a filter cigarette. He complained that Wills Navy Cut
cigarettes were short and stumpy and simply not worth the price. She said she preferred them any day to Four
Square or the very manly Red & White.

She didn’t remember his name now. Perhaps she never knew it. He was long gone, the Man Who Knew
English, to wherever he had to go. And she was living in the graveyard behind the government hospital. For
company she had her steel Godrej almirah in which she kept her music – scratched records and tapes – an old
harmonium, her clothes, jewellery, her father’s poetry books, her photo albums and a few press clippings that
had survived the fire at the Khwabgah. She hung the key around her neck on a black thread along with her
bent silver toothpick. She slept on a threadbare Persian carpet that she locked up in the day and unrolled
between two graves at night (as a private joke, never the same two on consecutive nights). She still smoked.
Still Navy Cut.

One morning, while she read the newspaper aloud to him, the old imam, who clearly hadn’t been listening,
asked – affecting a casual air – “Is it true that even the Hindus among you are buried, not cremated?”

Sensing trouble, she prevaricated. “True? Is what true? What is Truth?”

Unwilling to be deflected from his line of inquiry, the imam muttered a mechanical response. “Sach Khuda hai.
Khuda hi Sach hai.” Truth is God. God is Truth. The sort of wisdom that was available on the backs of the
painted trucks that roared down the highways. Then he narrowed his blindgreen eyes and asked in a slygreen
whisper: “Tell me, you people, when you die, where do they bury you? Who bathes the bodies? Who says the
prayers?”

Anjum said nothing for a long time. Then she leaned across and whispered back, untree-like, “Imam Sahib,
when people speak of colour – red, blue, orange, when they describe the sky at sunset, or moonrise during
Ramzaan – what goes through your mind?”

Having wounded each other thus, deeply, almost mortally, the two sat quietly side by side on someone’s sunny
grave, haemorrhaging. Eventually it was Anjum who broke the silence.

“You tell me,” she said. “You’re the Imam Sahib, not me. Where do old birds go to die? Do they fall on us like
stones from the sky? Do we stumble on their bodies in the streets? Do you not think that the All-Seeing,
Almighty One who put us on this Earth has made proper arrangements to take us away?”

That day the imam’s visit ended earlier than usual. Anjum watched him leave, tap-tap-tapping his way through
the graves, his seeing-eye cane making music as it encountered the empty booze bottles and discarded
syringes that littered his path. She didn’t stop him. She knew he’d be back. No matter how elaborate its
charade, she recognised loneliness when she saw it. She sensed that in some strange tangential way, he
needed her shade as much as she needed his. And she had learned from experience that Need was a
warehouse that could accommodate a considerable amount of cruelty.

Even though Anjum’s departure from the Khwabgah had been far from cordial, she knew that its dreams and
its secrets were not hers alone to betray.
SESSION 2
AUTHORS AND REPRESENTATIVE TEXTS FROM EUROPE

A. Joanne Kathleen Rowling (J.K Rowling) is a British author, philanthropist, film producer,
television producer, and screenwriter. She is best known for writing the Harry Potter fantasy
series, which has won multiple awards and sold more than 500 million copies, becoming the
best-selling book series in history.
B. LITERARY WORK: Harry Potter Series narrated the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter,
and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
C. CRITICAL APPROACH: Romanticism emphasizes the emotions and imagination within the
human being. It was a movement that responded against the disillusionment of the
Enlightenment values of reason after the French Revolution of 1789. It presents humans as
free entities who can make their own decisions without the influence of their environments.
D. QUESTIONS TO ASK:
1. How does Dumbledore explain the power of love, particularly a mother's love, in this passage?
2. How might the theme of a protective mark influence Harry's character and future actions?
3. Dumbledore advises Harry on the truth, stating that it is a "beautiful and terrible thing." How does
this view of truth reflect Romantic ideas?
4. In what ways does the forgiveness theme contribute to the overall Romantic atmosphere in the
passage?

An Excerpt from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

by J.K. Rowling

"Good afternoon, Harry," said Dumbledore. Harry stared at him. Then he remembered: "Sir! The Stone! It was Quirrell!
He's got the Stone! Sir, quick --"
"Calm yourself, dear boy, you are a little behind the times," said Dumbledore. "Quirrell does not have the Stone." "Then
who does? Sir, I --"
"Harry, please relax, or Madam Pomfrey will have me thrown out. Harry swallowed and looked around him. He realized
he must be in the hospital wing. He was lying in a bed with white linen sheets, and next to him was a table piled high
with what looked like half the candy shop.

"Tokens from your friends and admirers," said Dumbledore, beaming. "What happened down in the dungeons between
you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows. I believe your friends Misters Fred
and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet seat. No doubt they thought it would amuse you.
Madam Pomfrey, however, felt it might not be very hygienic, and confiscated it."

"How long have I been in here?" "Three days. Mr. Ronald Weasley and Miss Granger will be most relieved you have come
round, they have been extremely worried."

"But sit, the Stone, I see you are not to be distracted. Very well, the Stone. Professor Quirrell did not manage to take it
from you.

I arrived in time to prevent that, although you were doing very well on your own, I must say. "You got there? You got
Hermione's owl?"

"We must have crossed in midair. No sooner had I reached London than it became clear to me that the place I should be
was the one I had just left. I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you."

"It was you." "I feared I might be too late."

"You nearly were, I couldn't have kept him off the Stone much longer --"

"Not the Stone, boy, you -- the effort involved nearly killed you. For one terrible moment there, I was afraid it had.

As for the Stone, it has been destroyed." "Destroyed?" said Harry blankly. "But your friend -- Nicolas Flamel --"

"Oh, you know about Nicolas?" said Dumbledore, sounding quite delighted. "You did do the thing properly, didn't you?
Well, Nicolas and I have had a little chat, and agreed it's all for the best."
"But that means he and his wife will die, won't they?"

"They have enough Elixir stored to set their affairs in order and then, yes, they will die." Dumbledore smiled at the look
of amazement on Harry's face.
"To one as young as you, I'm sure it seems incredible, but to Nicolas and Perenelle, it really is like going to bed after a
very, very long day. After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. You know, the Stone was
really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would
choose above all -- the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them."
Harry lay there, lost for words. Dumbledore hummed a little and smiled at the ceiling.

"Sir?" said Harry. "I've been thinking... sir -- even if the Stone's gone, Vol-, I mean, You-Know- Who --"

"Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.

"Yes, sir. Well, Voldemort's going to try other ways of coming back, isn't he? I mean, he hasn't gone, has he?"

"No, Harry, he has not. He is still out there somewhere, perhaps looking for another body to share... not being truly alive,
he cannot be killed. He left Quirrell to die; he shows just as little mercy to his followers as his enemies. Nevertheless,
Harry, while you may only have delayed his return to power, it will merely take someone else who is prepared to fight
what seems a losing battle next time -- and if he is delayed again, and again, why, he may never return to power."

Harry nodded, but stopped quickly, because it made his head hurt. Then he said, "Sir, there are some other things I'd like
to know, if you can tell me... things I want to know the truth about...."

"The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing and should therefore be treated with great caution.
However, I shall answer your questions unless I have a very good reason not to, in which case I beg you'll forgive me. I
shall not, of course, lie."

"Well... Voldemort said that he only killed my mother because she tried to stop him from killing me. But why would he
want to kill me in the first place?" Dumbledore sighed very deeply this time.

"Alas, the first thing you ask me, I cannot tell you. Not today. Not now. You will know, one day... put it from your mind for
now, Harry. When you are older... I know you hate to hear this... when you are ready, you will know."

And Harry knew it would be no good to argue.

"But why couldn't Quirrell touch me?

"Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as
powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign... to have been loved so deeply, even
though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of
hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch
a person marked by something so good."

Dumbledore now became very interested in a bird out on the windowsill, which gave Harry time to dry his eyes on the
sheet. When he had found his voice again, Harry said, "And the invisibility cloak - do you know who sent it to me?"

"Ah - your father happened to leave it in my possession, and I thought you might like it." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled.
"Useful things... your father used it mainly for sneaking off to the kitchens to steal food when he was here."

"And there's something else..."

"Fire away." "Quirrell said Snape --"

"Professor Snape, Harry."

"Yes, him -- Quirrell said he hates me because he hated my father. Is that true?

"Well, they did rather detest each other. Not unlike yourself and Mr. Malfoy. And then, your father did something Snape
could never forgive."

"What?"
"He saved his life."