Lung cancer incidence increasing alarmingly

By Dr Rajkumar Bikramjeet Singh   · The incidence of lung cancer has risen by up to 15% as compared to 10 years back · Pollutants in cigarettes called polycyclic

By Dr Rajkumar Bikramjeet Singh

 

· The incidence of lung cancer has risen by up to 15% as compared to 10 years back

· Pollutants in cigarettes called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons can cause genetic damage in minutes; Smokers experience one mutation to their DNA for every 15 cigarettes they smoke, the accumulation of which may result in lung cancer.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths across the world, characterized by low survival rates. In India, lung cancer constitutes 6.9 per cent of all new cancer cases and 9.3 per cent of all cancer related death. Northeast India has the highest reported incidences of lung cancer in India, in both males and females.

The overall 5-year survival rate of lung cancer is dismal with approximately 15 per cent in developed countries and 5 per cent in developing countries.

As we observe Lung Cancer Awareness Month, Dr Rajkumar Bikramjit Singh, Asst Prof, Dept of Medicine, RIMS, Imphal says great emphasis need to be paid on the importance of educating people about the disease, the need to minimize risk factors and ensure early seeking of medical attention in case of symptoms like persistent cough accompanied by weight loss and fever.

“The past few years have witnessed a spike in numbers of lung cancer patients in India. The incidence has risen at an alarming rate of up to 15% over the past decade. While there is no clear evidence of the exact cause of this rise, we take into account high prevalence of smoking aided by factors such as increasing environmental pollution and increasing exposure to chemical substances as the plausible causes. Another trend characteristic to India is the disease’s prevalence in relatively younger men and women as compared to western countries. While the average age of lung cancer patients in the west is the mid 60s, in India this is much lower. In fact a lot of patients are being diagnosed in their early 50s,” says Dr Rajkumar Bikramjit Singh.

Unfortunately, late diagnosis remains a norm rather than exception in India where people often hesitate to visit doctors.

“Smoking doesn’t just harm the smoker himself. It harms the environment around him, causing many people to inhale the dangerous fumes emanating from his cigarette butt. Pollutants in cigarettes called PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) can cause genetic damage in minutes. Smokers experience one mutation to their DNA for every 15 cigarettes they smoke. The accumulation of such mutations gives rise to lung cancer. Besides myocardial infarction (heart attack) and lung cancer, smoking also increases the risk of cancer of throat, pancrease and even urinary bladder,” says Dr Singh.

Ban on public smoking, and pictorial warnings have been the right measures initiated in recent years in India. More steps are needed to nail home the point among youngsters that smoking is ‘NOT COOL’. Unfortunately, even as mass campaigns are being initiated against cigarette smoking, the repackaging and revival of the hookah culture among urban Indians is a worrying trend. The mushrooming of hookah parlors and bars across our urban landscape neutralizes all successes made against the cigarette.

Apart from taking radical steps to reduce prevalence of smoking – cigarettes, cigars as well as hookahs, steps also need to be taken to improve diagnosis and early intervention.

Due to rampant prevalence of tuberculosis in India, cases of lung cancer often get mistaken for tuberculosis and even treated for the same in initial days. Most lung cancer cases are detected in late stages by the time it is too late for treatment and cure.

“Another importance aspect is the steady increase in numbers of non-smokers falling prey to lung cancer, once considered an exclusive ailment of smoke addicts. A large share of non-smoking patients are women who might have had exposure to second hand smoke all their lives at home or even no exposure at all in some cases,” adds Dr Singh.

With symptoms such as fever, cough, weight loss and anorexia common to both tuberculosis and lung cancer, it is equally important for both patients and medical practitioners to stay alert to other indicators such as age of patient, history of smoking, or hoarseness in the voice. These indicators can point to the possibility of lung cancer.

How to Minimize Risk:

Say No to Smoking: Survival rates of lung cancer patients remain low in India as also across the world. Most lung cancers remain asymptomatic during the early stages, and by the time they become symptomatic, they are already advanced. In such circumstances, minimizing risk remains the main option. And quitting smoke – all kinds of smoke be it cigarette, hookah or cigars — is the primary risk reducing method.

Reduce exposure to polluted air: Wear masks on the roads to minimize inhaling of dangerous chemicals and particulate material. Also, select low pollution phases of the day such as early morning for activities like walking and exercising outdoor.

Keep Alert for Symptoms:

Early diagnosis can go a long way in saving or prolonging life of patients. Symptoms such as shortness of breath accompanied by fever, cough, bronchitis or hoarseness of voice should never be ignored, especially if it is of long duration. In India these symptoms are often mistaken and treated for tuberculosis. This calls for greater alertness and awareness.

 

The writer is a super-specialist in cancer (DM Medical Oncology) and he can be contacted at bikramsana@gmail.com

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/11/lung-cancer-incidence-increasing-alarmingly/

Career as Spa Therapist

By Ranjan K Baruah   Our lifestyle has changed from the past and people are in stress due to work pressure or other issues. In the age of competition everyone

By Ranjan K Baruah

 

Our lifestyle has changed from the past and people are in stress due to work pressure or other issues. In the age of competition everyone wants to move ahead and progress but in the process it indirectly affects our health. People are looking for solution and this brings more demand for the wellness clinics or spas. Spa centers have increased in most of the cities and are still increasing as it is a good solution to relax and relieve the rising stress, stress-related ailments, anxiety and exhaustion of everyday life.

Spa / massage therapists are professionally qualified practitioners who deliver a variety of therapies and body care treatments such as massage, body wraps, body scrubs, therapeutic baths etc. It helps in reducing stress, alleviate muscle aches and pains and help to improve the overall well being of individuals. Besides massaging, some therapists provide skin-care and aesthetic services like facials, manicures, pedicures, waxing, makeup, nail treatments, aromatherapy, reflexology, electrotherapy, hydrotherapy etc.

Spa massage or therapy is like another hospitality industry and is found in many places including in airports. The best part is that there is no specific long term course like beauty industry but there are some diplomas and certificate courses available.

Spa and massage therapy course imparts the students with knowledge in basic physiology, human anatomy, and training to identify different types of body forms and its imperfections. It also deals with various massage techniques. By studying this program students will also learn to do cellulite treatments, administer heat therapy, body wraps, mud wraps, body polishes and salt exfoliation.

Some of the courses are Advance Diploma in Spa Management, Advanced Spa and Beauty Therapy, Basic Spa and Beauty Therapy, Certificate Course in Spa Therapy, Diploma in Beauty Therapies and Ayurvedic Spa, Diploma in International Spa Therapy, Diploma in Professional Spa Therapy, Diploma in Spa Management, Diploma in Spa Massage, etc.

Trained spa therapists can find jobs in a variety of spa settings like day spa, resort spa, medi-spa, cruises/ship spa, club spa etc. Many luxury hotels, hospitals, beauty salons, fitness centers/ health clubs, sports clinics, slimming clinics, airlines, rehabilitation centers, nursing homes, corporate offices and Ayurvedic clinics offering massage facilities, recruit spa therapists. This is a new area of employment for our young people. There would be more spa and wellness clinics in north east in near future too.

Exam/Entrance Update:

GPAT: AICTE has launched the National level Graduate Pharmacy Aptitude Test (GPAT) for facilitating institutions to select suitable students for admission in all pharmacy programs approved by AICTE. Graduate Pharmacy Aptitude Test (GPAT) is a national Level entrance exam. The test will be conducted in different states and cities. The GPAT is a three hour computer based online test which is conducted in a single session. The GPAT score is accepted by all AICTE-Approved Institutions/University Departments/Constituent Colleges/Affiliated Colleges. Bachelor’s degree holders in Pharmacy (4 Years after 10+2 including lateral entry candidates) and those who are in the final year of B. Pharmacy course are eligible for appearing in GPAT 2016 examination. Last date for applying is 30th November and exam would be held on 17th January.

CMAT: AICTE has launched the National level Management Admission Test (CMAT) for facilitating institutions to select suitable students for admission in all management programmes approved by AICTE. Common Management Admission Test (CMAT) is a national Level entrance exam. The CMAT is a three hour computer based online test which is conducted in a single session to evaluate the candidate’s ability across various segments like Quantitative Technique, Logical Reasoning, Language Comprehension and General Awareness. Graduates in any discipline or Final year students of Graduate Courses (10+2+3) whose result will be declared before commencement of admission can apply for CMAT online. Last date for applying is 30th November and exam would be held on 17th January.

 

The writer can be reached at bkranjan@gmail.com

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/11/career-as-spa-therapist/

How long can you hide in an open field?

By Birkarnelzelzit Thiyam   People started to learn English for the sake of earning respect, because of the healthy impression in their heads that putting one or two English word

By Birkarnelzelzit Thiyam

 

People started to learn English for the sake of earning respect, because of the healthy impression in their heads that putting one or two English word while projecting their local tones would maximise the weight of their feedback. Even in the case of listening songs, people think that they are being respected more by the environment if they listen to English songs. I have seen people forcing themselves to listen to rock music to make people think that he is made with the blood of Europeans. The Austronesian culture for the people of Philippines which was modified while trading with China, India, Palau, Malay, Malaysia, Papua and few more was faded away soon after the Spanish colonization. Leaving all these behind, due to westernization 90% of the people have forgotten their own culture. Starting from the dress to the food they eat, everything is westernized. These sickness is also speeded in all over Taiwan. All the original culture is being kicked to the site of endanger. If you walk pass in any of the streets of Taiwan, you will notice the amount of westernization. Everyone plays English songs defying the fact of whether they understand the lyrics or not. The term ‘westernization’ or what we mainly call ‘Americanisation’ is nothing but copying everything whatever they do. A question can be asked “Are we changing our culture to their culture?” No, not at all. The very true fact is that they don’t have their own culture. We are just killing our own culture for the sake of some comfort-ability. Then what is the moto behind this imitation? The answer is Modernization. This type of response is expected for 90% of the people from our society. Without knowing what exactly a modernization is, they try to run in this modern world with imitation. Modernization refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a ‘pre-modern’ or ‘traditional’ to a ‘modern’ society. Or in a simple word modernization means nothing but updating the things that we have, not borrowing. What we are doing now is a complete mark of borrowing. Westernization is nothing but the things we get from the west. Do you borrow money from others and say that you are rich? This is the case happening. These present humans are borrowing everything from the west and acting like a man from rich culture. In Pakistan if a young Muslim woman cuts her hair above her shoulders, wearing Shalwar Kameez of latest fashion, her scarf (dupatta) around her neck only leaving her chest uncovered, wears high heel shoes, sun glasses and comes out of her car in front of a mall then we can say that she is modernized. But on the other way round, if the same girl comes out of her car wearing a necklace, pants with sleeveless short top and comes out of her car by holding hands with her boyfriend then we can say that she is westernized. Keeping the matter of fact in mind that people want to be westernized to make things comfortable, but still why can’t we bring our own culture to the more comfortable zone. To take an example for this present environ of Manipur society, if girls like to wear pants then they can wear those pants with flowery designs of Phanek MaPan Naibi or what so ever. Then our approach will be towards modernization. On the other hand, one of the most interesting thing that the Japanese people have done is the strong maintenance of originality. We can say that Japan is one of the most westernized countries but they are the ones who never let go of their own culture. We can see this particular short of the thing in movies also, from the food they eat to the dress they wear is all tight up with origin. But in technologies, they are westernized the most. Even in Saudi Arabia, there seems to be a mark of westernization in the diet for the new generations. The traditional Saudi cuisine is no longer served in most of the fast food restaurants. Leaving behind the rest part of the world, the main threat to the Indian culture is the coming up of new festivals like Valentine’s Day, New Year Eve, Halloween and so on. These festivals are celebrated more for the consumption of cakes and wines rather than for religious purposes.

Lastly, knowing the true differences between modernization and westernization would be a wise decision. We better wear mini Phanek than mini skirt.

 

The writer can be reached at birkarnelzelzitthiyam3073@gmail.com

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/11/how-long-can-you-hide-in-an-open-field/

The danger of Suu Kyi’s ‘above the president’ role

By Nehginpao Kipgen   National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Nov 19 met representatives of more than 50 countries, including Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Denmark,

By Nehginpao Kipgen

 

National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Nov 19 met representatives of more than 50 countries, including Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Norway, Russia and the United States. After waiting for 25 years since her party’s electoral victory in the 1990 general election was annulled by the military government, Ms Suu Kyi is convinced that her time has come to lead Myanmar.

In conjunction with her political ambition, she took steps not to antagonise the majority voters of the country, who are predominantly Buddhists. She not only maintained silence on human rights violations against the country’s minority Muslims, but her party also avoided fielding Muslim candidates. As a politician, her electoral strategy worked well in her favour, much better than many analysts had predicted before the election. As the NLD prepares to form the next government, there are some concerns. One major concern is the possible confrontation between the NLD and the military, which still remains a powerful force and essential element in the country’s polity. Before the election, Ms Suu Kyi said: “If we win, and the NLD forms a government, I will be above the president… the Constitution says nothing about somebody being above the president.”

In response, senior official Zaw Htay at the President’s office said Ms Suu Kyi’s comments were “against the constitutional provision” which states that the president takes precedence over all other persons. After the election on Nov 10, the NLD leader continued to say that the president “will have no authority, and will act in accordance with the decisions of the party…because in any democratic country, it’s the leader of the winning party that becomes the leader of the government”.

Her pre- and post-election remarks unequivocally show that she is keen and ambitious to lead not only her party but also the next government. Since the NLD now has a majority of the seats in both houses of Parliament, the party is in a position to elect the president and one of the two vice-presidents. The participation of the NLD in the 2015 general election means that the party has agreed to respect the 2008 Constitution, which protects the inherent role of the military in politics. Despite its majority in Parliament, the NLD would need to accept the reservation of 25 per cent of the seats for the military; as well as the post of one vice-president and Cabinet portfolios for home, defence and border affairs, and the formation of the National Defence and Security Council, which will have the authority to declare a national emergency for the military to take charge of all branches of the government – executive, judiciary and legislative. There is no doubt that Ms Suu Kyi would act with due diligence not to provoke the military leaders. And at the same time, she will play more or less the role of Ms Sonia Gandhi during the Congress-led government in India.

However, there is a danger that the military may find it difficult to tolerate the country’s president becoming a puppet of Ms Suu Kyi. If such situation arises, the military will criticise the president for incompetence. It must be remembered that one of the reasons General Ne Win staged a military coup in 1962 was the allegation that the civilian government under the leadership of Prime Minister U Nu was incapable of effective administration across the country. There are two main concerns that can provoke the military to intervene or disrupt the civilian government – the peace process with ethnic armed groups and the question of constitutional amendment.

If the military, which considers itself the guardian and protector of the state, sees that the NLD government is incapable of resolving the decades-old ethnic minority problems and feels that there is an imminent threat to the country’s national and territorial integrity, it will find a reason to intervene. Similarly, if the military sees that the NLD government uses its power to try to amend or replace the 2008 Constitution with the objective of reducing or eliminating the role of the military in politics, it will likely feel provoked. The people of Myanmar and the international community should understand that the democratisation process that has been put in place is one of consensual transition, in which the authoritarian leaders actively participate in the process of change by controlling or limiting the change. This type of transition entails some degree of political continuity between authoritarianism and democracy. Only when the military leaders are convinced that the peace process with ethnic armed groups is politically resolved and when they no longer fear being prosecuted for crimes committed during the years of military rule, will they be willing to give up their political role.  To avoid confrontation with the military and the country’s ethnic minorities, Ms Suu Kyi must ensure that both these groups are either consulted or included in all major decisions the NLD government takes. It would be a wise move on her part if she can allocate some important portfolios to ethnic minorities. Even if she acts as the architect or above the president, she must act diligently not to provoke the military leadership and not to betray the trust of ethnic minorities.

 

The writer is a United States-based political scientist and author of three books on Myanmar.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/11/the-danger-of-suu-kyis-above-the-president-role/

The Emotional Dissociation in ‘Beloved’

By Dr Omila Thounaojam   Sethe “could not feel” the skin on her back around the tree of scars “because her skin had been dead for years” (21) and such an

By Dr Omila Thounaojam

 

Sethe “could not feel” the skin on her back around the tree of scars “because her skin had been dead for years” (21) and such an absence of physical sensation also suggest on the possibility of the emotional dissociation Sethe experiences.  In a way, Morrison signals that Sethe’s trauma is in the body (Henderson) and her commitment to warding off the feeling and choosing not to tell or to “tell things halfway” only about the traumatic past are ways to cope with the sense of emotional dissociation she lives in. When Paul D arrives at 124 Bluestone, she wonders whether she can “feel the hurt her back ought to. Trust things and remember things because the last of the Sweet Home men was there to catch her if she sank?” (21)  Sethe’s memory of her mother’s mouth, misshapen from the bit comes back to her when Paul D describes her of the chain-gang. The body’s traumatic responses to torture and pain is distinctly underscored in the novel by another emphatic choric account by Beloved highlighting the image of the destruction of slave bodies on a slave ship. Through Beloved’s fractured monologue, the reader gains fleeting access to the “untold stories” of those slaves who were killed and abused by the “men without skin” (249). Rachel Lister states: “Multiple voices overlap clamoring to tell their stories. Horrifying images of drowning, abandonment, rape, and murder struggle to assert themselves”. Most significantly, Baby Suggs’s preaching in the clearing offers us an antidotal belief emphasizing on love of one’s own flesh for a much needed healing and self-possession: Here … in this place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. …. You got to love it, you! (104) We observe other sensual and sensory deprivations through which the novelist highlights Sethe’s response to the trauma of motherhood under slavery, in particular, Beloved’s death.

One of the most explicit instances of such an aspect will be Sethe’s failure to apprehend color and unlike Baby Suggs, who dies “starved for color,” (46) she does not see its absence in her life: Sethe looked at her hands, her bottle-green sleeves, and thought how little color there was in the house and how strange that she had not missed it the way Baby did. Deliberate she thought, it must be deliberate, because the last color she remembered was the pink chip in the headstone of her baby girl …. Every dawn she saw the dawn, but never acknowledged or remarked its color. There was something wrong with that. It was as though one day she saw red baby blood, another day the pink gravestone chips, and that was the last of it (46). Jill Matus claims that Sethe’s refusal to see colour is a “traumatic commemoration – as the blood drains from Sethe’s subsequent world”. Such a claim makes sense when in the text, perceptions of the world are forcefully marked by the central traumatic event. The past is made more vivid to the reader by allowing Sethe overwhelmingly recall of the past and at the same time, revealing that she feels haunted by the sense of profound sensory deprivations. By considering here Elizabeth A. Waites’s take on trauma and survival, one could say in Sethe’s case that her body memorializes trauma in specific somatic symptoms and it functions to emphasize her dissociation from feeling and affect. One also observes that the traumatic consequence of Beloved’s death to her sister, Denver is her temporary deafness.

A chain of repressed memories in Sethe’s life gets unleashed after Beloved’s arrival and her presence in the house brings back Sethe’s painful memories about material loss. It could be said that Morrison’s indictment of slavery as an institution that distorted and truncated maternal subjectivity develops by Sethe’s confrontation with her feelings of “mother-lack” and abandonment. One observes that, Beloved’s question “Your mother she never fix up your hair?” (72,) stirs up Sethe’s memories of her mother and she explains how she rarely saw her mother. While recalling her mother, Sethe revisits sites of memory and says when they “cut her down nobody could tell whether she had a circle and a cross or nor, least of all me and I did look” (73). Frantically, she begins to fold laundry: “She had to do something with her hands because she was remembering something she had forgotten she knew. Something privately shameful that had seeped into a slit in her mind right behind the slap on her face and the circled cross” (73). The reader initially finds it hard to understand Sethe’s anger about the memory she recovers and it is only later that we realize that her anger stems at her memory of an account of her origins. The one-armed woman, Nan, who nurses her, tells her that she was the only child her mother conceived in love. Sethe, as a small girl was “unimpressed” by this account and as a grown-up woman “she was angry, but not certain at what” (74). Sethe recalls Nan’s words and at first, is experienced as something “shameful” and then it provoked inexplicable anger in her. In Section Three of the novel, in Sethe’s “monologue,” the reader understands Sethe’s shame and anger on remembering her mother. She explains that her plan was to take herself and her children to the other side where her mother is: “You came right on back like a good girl, like a daughter which is what I wanted to be and would have been if my ma’am had been able to get out of the rice long enough before they hanged her and let me be one” (240). Further, she continues: “I wonder what they was doing when they was caught. Running, you think? No. Not that. Because she was my ma’am and nobody’s ma’am would run off and leave her daughter, would she? Would she, now?” (240) Denver’s earlier question “Why they hang your ma’am?” (73), receives an answer now when it is revealed that Sethe’s mother was running away , and somehow this is something that Sethe wants to avoid recognizing, but such an act of abandonment makes her feel angry and shamed.  Even though Sethe fails to feel any better, Nan tells her that she did mean more to her mother than any child she had borne:
She threw them all away, but you. The one from the crew she threw away on the island. The others from more whites she also threw away. Without names, she threw them. You she gave the name of the black man. she put her arms around him. The others she did not put her arms around. Never. Never. Telling you. I am telling you, small girl Sethe (74). Nan’s words confirm that Sethe was conceived and named willingly, but it also emphasizes the fact that she was left behind and was deprived of her mother when her mother attempted to escape. In a moving way, she says “mark the mark on me too” (72) clearly expressing her desire for her mother and her identification with her. One can infer that Sethe regards her children as extensions of herself and sees that their protection as the best part of herself. Abandoned by her mother and raised up by one-armed Nan, who has never quite enough milk for her, she is determined that she will bring her milk to her hungry babies. Sethe replays her longing for a mother who would protect and stay with her children through her memories of her mother. Therefore, it is evident that a genealogy of mothering under slavery that would rationally produce the extreme forms of Sethe’s maternal subjectivity is highlighted convincingly by the author. The narrative itself in the first half of the novel, through its fragmentation and discontinuity conveys the nature of the traumatic past. It is built up of memories, and as a result, the process disrupts linear time and blurs the boundaries between the present experience and the past. If trauma is considered a “disease of time”, the narrative texture in the novel represents it through “chronological disruption and the visitation of the past as a concrete, material reality” (Matus). Sethe lives in the past as if it is her present and she finds it outpouring in her daily life as if it is happening again and the narrator states part of the “serious work” of her day entails “beating back the past” (86). One could claim that the trauma of slavery has disrupted linearity and chronology so much so that, time itself is haunted thereby making the narrative denies history which is a systematic  ordering of time. It is only through a second reading that the reader could assimilate the details of the text in the light of the various incidents revealed only later. The reader finds an enhanced sense of continuity and coherence when the narrative is replayed and such a second reading offers the reader to share more fully the testimony to the trauma that the account offers. One sees that the phrase “passed on” is repeatedly used in the novel hinting at the way the notion of repetition and transmission through revisiting sites of trauma is emphasized in the text in order to understand the presentness of the past. Iyunolu Osagie feels Beloved as the materialized ghost is a repetition of the past, so that Sethe can confront her pain and guilt and interestingly, one observes that the novel itself is a repetition of Margaret Garner’s story.

The narrative enacts a circling around the traumatic unspeakable event and this aspect allows us to look at the ways in which we could bring in psychoanalytical accounts of traumatic repetitions “unavailable to the consciousness but intruding repeatedly on sight”. Two main aspects of trauma namely, “belatedness and incomprehensibility” (Caruth) could be used to describe the reader’s initial experiences of the novel and this feature fulfills the author’s intention to let her reader be pitched into the narrative without warning, in a similar manner in which the slaves found themselves confused aboard ships during the first great migration called as the transatlantic passage. Many felt that Morrison allows Sethe to remember too much and too well, but one should not forget that Sethe suffers from a repression of memory evident in the manner in which the narrative performs in a discontinuous and fragmented manner. Sethe represents the figure of the traumatized subject and is in a position in which she remembers and yet is numb to the effect of the experience. Just like parts of her body is numb and her memory is represented as bodily in order that the arrest of effect is outlined as sensory deprivation.

It could be argued that until Paul D arrives, Sethe seems to be living feeling enslaved as it were by her memories and the narrator states: “Her brain was not interested in the future. Loaded with the past and hungry for more, it left her no room to imagine, let alone plan for, the next day” (83). In an exchange between Paul D and Sethe, one observes that there is a possibility that he could be the catalyst that could facilitate Sethe with an exploration and confrontation of what is “inside”.

The narrator suggests of the possibility of a joint future when he, Denver and Sethe return from the carnival “on the way home, although leading them now, the shadows of three people still held hands” (59). Sethe, all the while muses over his invitation that they make a life together and it is at this point when she begins to desire, imagine a future that the ghost materializes. Most often, victims of trauma are possessed by their history and in Sethe’s case, her possession is made real and literal in the form of Beloved.

Elsewhere it is observed that “victims of trauma may experience not only ‘guilt’ about surviving, but intense anxiety about rebuilding a life and beginning again. One basis of anxiety is the feeling that building a new life is a betrayal of loved ones who died or were overwhelmed in a past that will not pass away” (LaCapra).  Considering this, it can be said that it is not only the possessiveness of the past that Beloved’s materialization is suggestive of but also Sethe’s need to confront her own guilt at having survived and also to work through that past if she is to move forward.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/11/the-emotional-dissociation-in-beloved/

Manipur Peoples’ Solidarity to the UN International Day of Solidarity with … – KanglaOnline


KanglaOnline

Manipur Peoples’ Solidarity to the UN International Day of Solidarity with
KanglaOnline
NEW DELHI, November 30: In response to the Global Call to Action on the occasion of the United Nations International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People, the volunteers of the Manipur Students’ Association Delhi (MSAD) and Campaign for Peace and …
UN International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People at DelhiE-Pao.net

all 29 news articles »


KanglaOnline

Manipur Peoples' Solidarity to the UN International Day of Solidarity with
KanglaOnline
NEW DELHI, November 30: In response to the Global Call to Action on the occasion of the United Nations International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People, the volunteers of the Manipur Students' Association Delhi (MSAD) and Campaign for Peace and …
UN International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People at DelhiE-Pao.net

all 29 news articles »

Read more / Original news source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&ct2=us&usg=AFQjCNF_ihgg42JxjBRaCtameL3FZEg1nw&clid=c3a7d30bb8a4878e06b80cf16b898331&cid=52779000448574&ei=CvpbVrnkEIXJ3QG_mrnABg&url=http://kanglaonline.com/2015/11/manipur-peoples-solidarity-to-the-un-international-day-of-solidarity-with-palestinian-people/

Manipur Peoples’ Solidarity to the UN International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People

NEW DELHI, November 30: In response to the Global Call to Action on the occasion of the United Nations International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People, the volunteers of the

NEW DELHI, November 30: In response to the Global Call to Action on the occasion of the United Nations International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People, the volunteers of the Manipur Students’ Association Delhi (MSAD) and Campaign for Peace and Democracy (Manipur) and other like-minded individuals have gathered in Delhi on November 29, to express the solidarity to the Palestinian people’s continuing resistance against US-Zionist occupation of Palestine and the violation of the democratic rights, said a press release by MSAD.

It said, all the organizations which gathered stand with the Palestinian diaspora who exercise their full rights and responsibilities to defend their people and their land, and stated that the current struggle in all of Palestine is the struggle of all people who want to see peace with justice in a liberated Palestine.

The organizations have stated in the press release that it is a stand against colonialism in all its forms and manifestations, and a stand with Palestinian leader, Rasmea Odeh, who is currently living in the United States and resisting the attacks of US imperialism against her right to live and serving her community in Chicago, Illinois.

The struggle for a free Palestine and justice and freedom for Rasmea are inextricably linked in fighting US imperialism and US-backed Zionist occupation of Palestine, and MSAD, Campaign for Peace and Democracy (Manipur) and all the volunteered individuals call on the end of all attacks of Palestinian leaders and an immediate release of all the Palestinian political prisoners in Palestine and across the world, said the press release.

The press release has also mentioned the following points,

– The questions of the rights to self-determination of the Palestinians and other oppressed peoples, including the people of Manipur, have not been addressed. This must be addressed on the basis of the universal principles of democratic rights and the aspirations of the peoples who wish to enjoy the rights to self-determination.

– We share the voice of the Palestinian resistance.

– We condemn the continuous illegal occupation of all Palestinian lands by Israel and US funding for the Zionist troops.

– We denounce the Zionist crimes and complicity of their allies. We continue to struggle to break the isolation of the Palestinians under occupation.

 

 

 

 

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/11/manipur-peoples-solidarity-to-the-un-international-day-of-solidarity-with-palestinian-people/