Pardos’ Triumph

On September 13, 1745, the pardo (mixed-race Afro-Brazilian) brotherhood (lay Catholic association) of Nossa Senhora do Livramento (Our Lady of Emancipation) of Recife, Pernambuco, in collaboration with the pardo brotherhood of Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe) in neighboring Olinda, enthralled Pernambuco’s largest city with a great festival in honor of Blessed Gonçalo Garcia (1556–97). Like many colonial festivals, the festivities included fireworks, artillery salvos, five triumphal carts, seventeen allegorical floats, five different dance performances, and jousting. Yet never before had such an extravagant display of material wealth been made by an Afro-Brazilian brotherhood. The pardo irmãos (brotherhood members) had two important issues they wanted to settle once and for all with this festival. One was the question of Blessed Gonçalo’s pardoness, since the would-be-saint was the son of a Portuguese man and an East Indian woman, and pardoness in Brazil had been defined as the result of white–black miscegenation. The other issue was the popular notion that mixed-race Afro-Brazilians constituted colonial Brazil’s most deviant and unruly socioracial group. In this article, I analyze how mixed-race Afro-Brazilians used the material culture of early modern festivals to publicly articulate claims about their sacro-social prestige and socio-symbolic status. I contend that material culture played a central role in the pardo irmãos’ articulation of their devotion to Blessed Gonçalo and claims of sacro-social and socio-symbolic belonging, and that they used this material culture to challenge colonial notions about their ethnic group.

Feminist concern of Girish Karnad Novel: Nagamandala

This present paper attempts to critically analyse the selected novel of Girish Karnad _Nagamandala. Girish Karnad, as a dramatist, is free from any such feminist tags and like Shashi Deshpande, an Indian woman novelist, treats ‘woman as a woman’ and as ‘a human being’. As a male feminist, he has treated the feminist issues like child marriage, loveless marriage, exploitation of wife in the hands of husband, double standards of society and law operating against her in the society etc. It also expresses the hollowness and injustice of patriarchal society. He insists that it is not patriarchy but matriarchy which is essential for society. Thus, the refined sensibilities of woman like love, sex, compassion and tolerance make her unsurpassable in the society. The pride of woman also finds a space in his play Naga Mandala.

Harsh Reality of Chauvinistic Patriarchial World : Ambivalence of Objectified Second Sex After Rebellious Self-Assertion

In this paper efforts have been made to show the mixed feeling that comes in the mind of an Indian woman when she realises her worth. The chauvinistic world is using woman as an object to fulfil the desires since ages. Indian women are brought up in such atmosphere that they find it difficult to face men and like a dumb cattle obey all the orders of man, be it their father in childhood, their husband after marriage or their son in old age. She is never asked or allowed to express her own will and when she tries to take the decisions in her own hands she is tortured and insulted with taunts. This paper highlights the feelings of women when she faces such situation. In this paper a deep study of three plays of Vijay Tendulkar has been done which are Kamala, Silence! The Court Is In Session and Kanyadaan .

Tuberculosis Verucossa Cutis of Hand: A Case Report

Tuberculosis verrucosa cutis (TBVC) is exogenous paucibacillary cutaneous tuberculosis (CTB) and is the third commonest type of CTB. Clinically, TBVC usually begins as isolated or multiple warty papules, and soon acquires a verrucous plaque and are usually located in the extremities. Here we report a case of 41-year-old South Indian woman presenting with occasional pruritus, erythematous scaly nodules and warty plaques on the back of right hand following nail prick. A positive Mantoux test, skin biopsy showing granuloma and related epidemiologic, clinical and histopathologic data with an excellent response of patient to the treatment confirmed TBVC.

Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura after ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine

A 50-year-old Indian woman presented with acute dysphasia, left upper limb numbness and thrombocytopenia 12 days after receiving the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine (AstraZeneca/Vaxzevria). MRI of the brain was unremarkable. Microangiopathic haemolytic anaemia with thrombocytopenia was noted on her peripheral blood film. A diagnosis of thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) was confirmed through the findings of absent ADAMTS13 (a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with a thrombospondin type 1 motif, member 13) activity and markedly raised titre of ADAMTS13 autoantibodies. Prompt treatment with plasma exchange, adjunctive steroids and rituximab was commenced. A remission of TTP was achieved and she was discharged 3 weeks after admission. While other immune-mediated conditions have been documented after receipt of the vaccine, this report highlights the first case of immune-mediated TTP diagnosed after administration of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine.

Feministic Approach in The Novel’s of Githa Hariharan: A Critical Study

Githa Hariharan, a well-known Indian woman author, has tried to focus on the deeply entrenched biases of Indian society against the feminine gender. Githa Hariharan’s new-age feminism is not about the eradication of differences between the sexes or the attainment of equal prospects, but rather concerns the individual’s rights to identify one and be comfortable in one’s own skin. The chief psychological consistencies between the sexes include women’s emotive uncertainty, greater acceptance for tiresome details, inability for intellectual thought and proneness to submission. The feminist mindfulness is to identify oneself as the victim to the power of men in society and the system. However, modern day feminists are against masculinist hierarchy but are firm believers of sexual dichotomy. This paper will study the feministic approach of Githa Hariharan in her four novels that is The Thousand Faces of Night, The Ghosts of Vasu Master, In Times of Siege and Fugitive Histories.

The Ideal Indian Woman: Defined by Hindu Nationalism and Culture

This paper discusses how the notion of “ideal femininity” is understood in the Indian context. I propose the term Sati Savitri aurat (woman) to describe this ideal image of an Indian woman. The paper argues that the modern Sati Savitri woman must embody three values that make her truly an ideal Indian woman in the eyes of society. Those values are modesty, marriageability and silence. The combination of these values makes an Indian woman socially respected and desirable. These themes reverberated when I asked my interview participants, 10 female journalists from diverse age groups, about the concept of an ideal Indian woman. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with these women journalists and their ideas about formulation of the concept of “ideal Indian woman” were recorded and analysed. In this paper, I categorise their responses into the three values (modesty, marriageability and silence) and thereby propose that the embodiment of all these values constitute the modern Sati Savitri, a prototype for middle-class Hindu women. By proposing this concept of Sati Savitri, a Hindu mythological idea, I argue that respectable norms for women’s sexuality are located within the discourse of Hindu nationalism and culture.

Chetan Bhagat: Recent Readings: Mental conflicts of Indian women in One Indian Girl

This chapter is written to have a look at Chetan Bhagat’s novel One Indian Girl from cerebral angle to acknowledge a deviation in Indian Women’s demeanor and behaviour. Indian women’s mind is full of conflicts and confusion. They have to deal with social stereotypes. Our society believes that girls can make a successful career either or a successful home. Can’t do both together. What an astonishment! We give wings to our daughters but then she is told that she has to build a nest. So she has to forget to fly. Chetan Bhagat’s novel One Indian Girl offers a female’s anima – her goals and inclination in her thoughts and geared up to flare up and ensue at even the slightest pierce. Radhika Mehta cogitates a maiden who is a sturdy backer of feminist ideology however she has to confront the pre-determined norms of Indian society that have been set below patriarchal society because of which she has to go through numerous sorts of torments and distress. This narrative is generally about Radhika, the proponent, unveiling the exceptional elements of a modern-day Indian woman. Radhika’s social reputation influences society to a great extent that she turns into a vulnerable target of many known and unknown conditions which vexed her unfulfilled objectives of not getting bodily love and appreciation. Radhika’s unfulfilled dreams take her foundation within side the discrimination meted to her in her formative years and youth. It is a first-character narrative through the protagonist whose internal voice (named ‘Mini-me’) constantly expresses her internal feelings and the mental conflicts occurring in her thoughts.

Self-Expression in the Cyber World: Challenges for a Woman

Apart from offering a platform to express opinions, social networking sites also enable people to maintain anonymity and express hatred. Women, particularly strong and opinionated ones, often fall prey to such revulsion. This investigation explores why and how women’s self-expression is curtailed in the virtual domain. To answer this question, thematic analysis has been carried out of Facebook comments and messages received by an Indian woman over a period of two years. Findings indicate that men responding to women’s online self-expression can fall into any of three emergent categories: self-proclaimed well-wishers, admirers turned abusers and the toxically masculine. While the first group silences women discreetly and typically by moral policing or invading women’s personal space, the latter two groups do so more blatantly. However, the three groups share a common patriarchal bias, believing that self-expression is a masculine privilege and women who try to democratise this privilege are cultural deviants.

Scrub Typhus Masquerading as Limbic Encephalitis

Scrub typhus, an acute febrile infectious disease prevalent in the ‘tsutsugamushi triangle’, is a mite-born rickettsial zoonosis, caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi. The clinical presentation is protean and involves multiple organ systems of the body, including central and peripheral nervous systems. We report a 22-year-old previously healthy Indian woman who presented with clinical (confusion, excessive sleepiness, cognitive dysfunction and focal seizures) and neuroimaging features of limbic encephalitis. After exclusion of common infectious, autoimmune and paraneoplastic causes, she was diagnosed with scrub typhus associated encephalitis, which responded to doxycycline and azithromycin therapy.