Customer Reviews

A River Called Titash (Voices from Asia)

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1 star:		(10)

 

 

This book offers a magnificent description of river life in rural Bengal. The translator captures the ethos and the nuances of the original to a great extent. The novel makes the rural setting of half a century past come alive with the use of flowing metaphors. A delightful read.

The original in Bengali published nearly 45 years ago in Calcutta , this unique novel, sensitively and beautifully translated here, is a moving combination of folk lyrics and ethnography. Story of a Malo fishing village at the turn of the century captures the music, speech, rituals, and rhythms of a once happily self-sufficient community and culture swept away by natural catastrophe, modernization, and politically engineered ethnic strife. Offers intimate glimpses of the lives and minds of Hindu fishers and Muslim peasants, in small communities coexisting in harmony and mutual empathy until the violent partition of Bengal. Story of a way of life now all but extinct, a life rich in the poetry and music of human relationships amidst the poverty.

I read this book and it was the most horrible book eva. Like eva. OMG it was, like, eva, da most boringest book eva. Like eva! Not eva as in ever, but my friend Eva who is like da most boringest book like eva! Like so eva that like you 'd be board like fo eva. Li so don't buy dis buk unless you board like board games. There are much better ways of entertainment like videogames and television. Plop of you kooshie couch and watch the latest pokemon movie!!! Or AUstin Powers!!! Shagadlic!

this book is horrible. my teacher makes me read it and analyze it and i'm only 13! actually this book is pretty good, there i go again, contradicting myself contrary to popular belief. lol. ahhh... this book is quite good except for the fact that we have to analyze it and take notecards on a lot of motivations n stuff. but i would never read it in my spare time. i would much rather read about george w. bush and his loony antics. boy are we lucky we have a smart pm here in da UnItEd KiNgDoM which is a wicked country! UNION JACK POWER! go wills, go harry, go keanu, go ian, go christopher, go jamie, go phillip... BRITS AND AUSSIES AND CANADIANS ROCK! notice that none of these people are from the US...

This was the absolute worst book I think I have ever read! I am not kidding one bit! It will bore you to death. It literally almost did kill me (long story). I swear to god though, you will have no idea what the hell is going on in this book. Here is an excert from the book:

"We hear the Kayasthas come to your home to practice tabla-playing, and to eye your daughters. Think of this--- you mixing with the Kayasthas will not confer on you the rank of the Kayastha."

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?? And thats the first time in the whole book they even mention these "Kayasthas". This book is impossible to follow!

EWWWWWW! This book was soooooo BARFOLICIOUS! how do expect a f***** seventh grader to understand this?! Don't read it. it's the most confusing book i've ever read. if you actually want to read it, you're insane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If there is one thing that the author acomplishes in this book it is making you feel the pain of the malo people. As they suffer food shortages you can literally feel there hunger pains. As the malo's are beaten you feel as though you are being beaten as well, The author realy does a good job of making you feel pain. This book has realy tought me what mental pain realy is.This is one of the few books that it actualy hurts to read, it is that bad. My class mates and I were realy able to feel the pain and suffering of the malo people that is described in this book.

We were forced to read this book in our english history class, Other people from my grade have also expressed there opinion of it, and because I see no other kids from other schools writing about I can tell that they are net reading it. So we must be alone.

The book A River Called Titash was written by Adwaita Mallabarman. Adwaita Mallabarman was born in Gokanghat village, India, and the book was originally published in 1956 in the Bengali Language. In 1997 the book was republished in the English language by Kalpana Bardhan. The book is set in the early 1900's on the Titash River which is now in modern day Bangladesh. The book is about the life of the Malo fishing community and many other communities, who live on the Titash. The people have different motivations for the many things that they do. They have many causal factors that drive them to do the things they do. In our cultural materialist social theory there is a thing called the "house diagram." The house diagram has three levels, the material level, the social level, and the idea level. The material level is the most important level. The material level includes subsistence technology, the economy, ecology, environment, and the mode of reproduction. You can tie most peoples motivations to the material level. This is because a lot of motivations come from the need to survive. Some important motivations are; that in certain seasons they are unable to get food because the environment of the Titash is constantly changing. Another main motivation from the material level is the fact that in their economy it is extremely difficult for them to get the food and money they need for survival. This causes the employers to pay the employees very little money in exchange for a large amount of work. Important ideas also come from the social level of the house diagram. This level is home to family and kinship structures, education, the social structure, and the system of leadership or government. These ideas include their social structure of inequality, the people in the higher classes believe that they are a superior race than the people of the lower classes. They feel that the lower class is a different species than they are and that anything someone of a lower class touches is defiled. Another motivation is that people only feed and take care of the people in their family because they don't have enough resources to feed two families. Motivations also come from the Idea level. The idea level is home to the art, literature, science, religion, social norms, beliefs, and values. A big motivation from the idea level is that religion is incredibly important in peoples lives, they use resources, the resources they don't have to show respect for their gods. They love their gods and this is what makes religion so important.

Doesnt That make u snore?

“A River Called Titash”, a novel written by Adwaita Mallabarman and translated by Kalpana Bardhan was first published in 1956. The story takes place in the early 1900’s in Bengal, a part of India which later became the independent country of Bangladesh. Along the banks of the rivers Meghana and Titash, in Northeast Bengal, live the Malo. The Malo are a group of Shudras, the second lowest class in the Indian social structure, and have a subsistence technology of fishing and agriculture. The book does look occasionally at purely agricultural groups and also briefly at priests; however, the Malo are the book’s main focus. Much of the novel is based on Mallabarman’s experiences growing up in this group of people. This is a complicated novel with many hidden plots. The question that we looked at was why the characters in A River Called Titash do what they do. It is very difficult to understand why the characters in the book do what they do. Through analysis, we did discover several of the characters’ main motivations. The Malo live in a very harsh environment and they are motivated to adapt to it in order to survive. They employ a particular subsistence technology that helps them to survive in their environment, but makes it hard to gain food. Because they are threatened by starvation, the Malo are forced to work extremely hard. Their methods of survival also require large numbers of workers, so the Malo are motivated by the need for reproductive success. A second primary factor that motivates people to do what they do is the social structure. The Indian system of social stratification is called the Varna System. It is a very strict hierarchy and people who do not live according to the rules of the social structure are severely punished. People belong to jatis, which are subgroups within classes and are motivated to become respected within their jati. A third important motivation in A River called Titash is family. People are expected to marry and form nuclear families (mother, father, children) because it is the social and religious norm but also because it is difficult to survive when there is not a man, a woman and a child fulfilling their traditional roles in the home. A fourth important motivation in A River Called Titash is social norms. There are many social norms in Indian culture that dictate what people are allowed to do, how people dress, how people work and how people behave towards one and other. Following these norms could bring one respect within a community, while failure to follow these norms could lead to being disowned or being killed. A fifth important factor that motivates the characters in A River Called Titash to do what they do is religion. They have deep religious beliefs that cause them to do things such as make daily offerings and prepare great celebrations. Religion also motivates them to obey many social distinctions and to obey religious rules strictly such as having good karma or forbidding widows to remarry. These are some of the main factors that influence the characters in the novel A River Called Titash. They are motivated to adapt to their very harsh environment in order to get food and survive. Two of the main characters, Kishore and Subal, leave the village they live in to go up North. They are forced to do this without a choice, because they do not have enough fish where they normally live. The only way that the Malo (which Kishore and Subal are members of) get food, is by fishing in rivers. The reason that they run out of fish where they are, is because of the environment. It is a dry season, during the summer, and so there isn’t as much water in the river. The fish are exposed to more air, and so they sufficate. The environment kills malo very often in the society. They must move North to look for more fish in the river. This greatly affects them, because this is where Kishore marries Ananta. Although it is very inefficient and inconvenient, this is what they must do to adapt and survive in their habitat. The reason why this isn’t a very good subsistence technology, is because they are putting their eggs all in one basket. If there is a shortage of fish, then they ... all die. They live in a forest near a river, but far away from many resources. They don’t have any sort of electricity or advanced technology at all. Because of that, the most difficult thing about living in that society is surviving and adapting in the environment without anything to build shelter, get food, etc. Although they may have adapted to the environment, survival is still a constant daily struggle for Shudras. Subal had died, and so his wife was on her own. She had to do all of the work, such as working, fishing, tending to house, sewing, practicing her religion, cooking, etc. One day it talks about how much she has to do in the evening. First she has to take care of a basket of fish that her father brings home. Then she has to cook for her parents, and for herself. After that, she must go to the market, buy rice, come home, and cook some more. This is what every day for her is like. She just was not able to do all of the work. As a result, she could not really get any food, and so she had to be helped by her parents (but they don’t help her that much). Everyone else in the society tries to help her, but she still has to work hard. In this society with this environment especially, each person is constantly working to survive. It is their main concern, and it’s a struggle for the Malo to survive. If anyone doesn’t work hard, then they will not survive.