End Term Assignment - Ways of Reading - Lipi Katiha - Prompt 2 and Self Reflective Essay

END TERM ASSIGNMENT

Lipi Katiha

S173ISD09

School of Design

Write a short-story in which there is a substantial co-presence of English along with one or more non-English languages. 

The translation of the non-English passages are present in the story as well as the footnotes.

HALF AND HALF

Characters:

Jiya - Female protagonist; Indian

Yonghun - Jiya's boyfriend; Male protagonist; South Korean

Minakshi - Jiya's mother; Indian

Rajiv - Jiya's father; Indian

Chimin - Yonghun's father; South Korean

Subin - Yonghun's mother; South Korean

Characters (who do not have a dialogue but just have their presence)

Boyong - Yonghun's sister; South Korean

Rajni - Minakshi's friend; Indian

As soon as Minakshi returned from the market, she put her phone on the table and sat down on the blue couch kept in living room, with an anxious face. She was could not believe what she just heard sometime back… she kept wondering if it is the actual truth or not. ‘No, nope, My Jiya can never do that. Live in relationship with a man without her own mother’s permission? Is that even  possible? How could she not ask me even once?’ Immersed in such thoughts, Minakshi dialled her husband Rajiv’s phone.

Rajiv picked up the phone and answered, “I will be getting off work after some time. Is there anything important that you would like to say?”

“My mind is restless, I just came back from the market. I met Rajni there and she told me about Jiya. Rajni went to meet her sister living in New Delhi a few days back, and she saw Jiya there. She told me that Jiya is not living in a PG but has rather rented a room and is living with a South Korean man there. I still cannot believe… that our daughter…!”, said Minakshi in an unsettled manner.

“Is that even practical? I am pretty sure she must have seen someone else… have you tried calling Jiya once?”

“I did, but the service kept sending out the message of not reachable”

“Okay, don’t think about it too much, I will try to leave for home as soon as I can. Let’s talk calmly after I get home. Everything will get better.” said Rajiv and hung up the phone

Minakshi started doing kitchen chores but she could not distract her mind away from what she was informed about by Rajni. It has been just one year since Minakshi got admission in the Post Graduate programme of East Asian Studies in Delhi University. She completed her Under Graduate Degree as a topper, from Degree College of Solan, Himachal Pradesh, and while doing so, she also studied Korean language from a Korean language centre in Solan and was also able to complete that short course with the highest grade. Being proud of her intelligent daughter, Minakshi made sure to get Jiya enrolled in the MA programme after she passed the entrance test, and also selected a nearby PG for her to stay in. Minakshi and Jiya used to talk to each other on the phone almost daily, and Jiya made sure not hide anything from her mother, and that is why her mother was in shock after what she heard from Rajni.

The sudden sound of the ringtone ended Minakshi’s train of thought. Jiya called her mother after seeing a bunch of missed calls from her mother. As soon as Minakshi picked up the phone, she asked, “Hi Jiya, are you not living in your PG nowadays?”

“Mom, I was contemplating telling you about this… actually…” Jiya was hesitant in answering her mother.

“So, whatever I have heard from Rajni is true, isn’t it? Are you living with a South Korean friend of yours?”

“Yes, mom! We are actually in a live-in relationship…”

Minakshi was appalled, “But why did you do this?”

“Mom, we love each other…!”

“And? Was it necessary for the both of you to live together already? And if you love each other so much then why didn’t you think about getting married? I am sure it’s that South Korean man who refused to get married, right?”

“I knew you and dad will start thinking in this way, and that is exactly the reason why I did not want to talk about it to both of you. I was aware of the fact that you would either want us to get married or break up with one another…”

Minakshi in a surprised tone, said, “I admit that breaking up a relationship can be hard but getting married… I don’t see any issues in that!”

“But, marriage is so restricting! Especially for the woman, the world around her entirely changes… there are so many customs… and traditions that a woman has to think about. Do you think it would be feasible for me to continue my studies if I get married now? I still have so much more to study… MA, M. Phil, PhD! Please tell me, if I am living like this with Yonghun, then what is the problem?

“Jiya, don’t you think you are too young for this? I admit that you love him but does he have the same feelings for you? What if that South Korean man takes physical advantage of you and just breaks up? How will you feel about it, then?

“Mom, where do you feel the need to mention his nationality? South Korean? How does it matter if he is South Korean or Indian… In fact, his mother called me the other day. Everybody in his family knows about our relationship!” Jiya said in a satisfactory fashion.

“I can’t focus on anything as of you… I will call you tonight after talking about this with your father…” Minakshi hung the call and immediately her mind was swarmed with thoughts about her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend, Yonghun.

At night, after Rajiv came back from the office, Minakshi and he had a detailed conversation and were stuck in a maze. They had no idea what to do next…

“If they do not want to get married, I do not want them to, but there should also be some sort of confirmation regarding their relationship right? Jiya told me that her boyfriend’s family is aware of this situation, so shall we go, meet them and talk to them?” Minakshi said.

“But how are we supposed to talk to them? They are South Koreans and we… we don’t even understand each other’s languages!” said Rajiv.

Minakshi was stressed and unsure, “We don’t even have any other way out though, we can’t let this situation be how it is right now… and we can’t even bring Jiya back home, it will only ruin her career and future…”

Minakshi and Rajiv decided to talk to Yonghun who was pretty good at speaking English. After talking to Yonghun on the phone, Minakshi and Rajiv realised that Yonghun is very serious about his relationship with Jiya. They were still unsure about his family’s views on this, though. They were sure of the fact that Jiya is very serious about this relationship as well and is not just in a live in relationship for fun. They knew that if Yonghun breaks up with Jiya in the future, it will be hard for her to bear the consequences. For the better future of both Jiya and Yonghun, her parents keep pondering upon this situation to come to a conclusion. They were also curious to know how people in South Korea view live in relationships, or just relationships in general.

The next day, Jiya and Minakshi talked over the phone and Jiya informed that it is going to be New Years’ Day in South Korea after three months. Yonghun will be going back home during the time and Jiya also wants to go to South Korea because she is planning to write a conference paper on ‘Feminism in South Korea’ and she wants to talk to people there and get to know their opinions on it. 

Minakshi and Rajiv thought a lot and chose to go to South Korea along with Jiya and Yonghun to meet and talk to his family regarding their relationship.

In February, they took off to South Korea with Jiya, whereas Yonghun was already in South Korea. When they arrived at the Incheon airport, Yonghun along with his father, Chimin was already there to welcome them. Chimin shook hands with Minakshi and Rajiv with a wide smile on his face.

After travelling for around one hour, they reached Yonghun’s home based in Seoul. Yonghun’s mother Subin and younger sister Boyong stood at the entrance of their home to welcome the family. No one in Yonghun’s family knew how to speak English so Jiya decided to become the bridge connecting the two families together.

Jiya’s fluent Korean speaking skills, her distinct facial features and honey golden brown skin tone attracted his family’s attention to the fullest. Jiya’s parents were equally attracted to Yonghun’s personality and looks. His stunning looks, raspy voice, him spending time doing the house chores, taking care of his little sister and polite conversational practices, are just few of the reasons why they liked him. Their ‘liking Yonghun’ scale would break into lovingness every time he tried to speak broken Hindi. 

In the evening, everyone sat in a circle drinking tea. Minakshi and Rajiv decided to talk about the relationship to Chimin and Subin, with Jiya being the interpreter between them:

Rajiv: “Do you know that Yonghun is living together with our daughter, Jiya?”

Jiya: “용훈이가 우리 딸 지야랑 함께 살고 있는 거 아세요?” (1)

Subin: “‘네~ 영상통화 하는 동안 용훈이가 지야를 소개시켜 줬어요” (2)

Jiya: “Yes, Yonghun introduced us to Jiya once, while we were video chatting with him.”

Rajiv: “Can you tell us what you think about this relationship?”

Jiya: “이 관계에 대해 어떻게 생각하는지 말씀해주실 수 있으신가요?” (3)

Chimin: “솔직히 말하면, 요즘은 한국에서 동거를 나쁘게 생각하지 않아요. 만약 지야가 한국인이었다면, 우리는 지야를 용훈이의 친한 친구로 보았겠지만 우리는 인도 문화를 알고 있어요. 인도에서 그런 관계는 커플이 나중에 결혼할 계획이 있을 때만 발전하는 것을 알고 있어요. 그래서 우리는 지야를 이제 우리 가족 구성원으로 생각해요.” (4)

Subin: “우리는 지야를 많이 좋아합니다. 그래서 우리가 지야를 좋아하는 만큼 지야가 저희를 사랑하길 원해요.” (5)

Jiya: “To be honest, live in relationship is not considered as a bad thing in South Korea, nowdays. If Jiya was a South Korean, we would have seen her as a close friend of Yonghun, but we know the culture of India. We are aware that such a relationship only develops when a couple plans to get married later in India. So now, we think of her as a member of our family. We like Jiya a lot. We want her to give us as much love as we give to her.”

Chimin: “지야가 항상 용훈이랑 같이 있겠다고 약속하면 우리는 정말 행복할 거 같네요. 요즘 연애는 일 년도 지속되지 못 하니까요.” (6)

Jiya: “We would be really happy if our son’s life partner is someone who will always promise to stay by his side. Otherwise, relationships these days do not even last one year.”

Rajiv: “We would also like it if we get to connect to kind people like you (to Chimin) through our children.”

Jiya: “우리는 우리 아이들을 통해 치민씨와 같은 좋은 분들과 인연이 되기를 원해요.” (7)

Rajiv: “Finally, we understood why South Koreans are so well behaved and why Jiya decided to live with Yonghun.”

Jiya: “드디어, 우리는 어떻게 한국인들이 그렇게 착한지 그리고 왜 지야가 용훈이랑 함께 살기로 결정했는지 이해했어요.” (8)

Chimin: “우리는 항상 전화와 영상통화로 용훈이와 지야랑 연락 할 생각이예요. 만약에 우리가 용훈이와 지야의 삶이 잘못된 단계를 밟을 것이라고 느끼면, 우리는 용훈이와 지야가 서로 이해할 수 있게 노력할 것이고, 만약 지야 부모님도 그렇게 생각하시면, 용훈이와 그것에 대해 얘기해보시는 게 좋을 거 같네요.” (9)

Jiya: “We will always be in touch with Jiya and Yonghun through phone and video call. If we ever feel that they are about to take a wrong step in their life, we will try to make them understand and if you feel that way too, please do not hesitate to talk about it with Yonghun.”

Rajiv: “Yes, but Yonghun is a smart man! Anyway, we will be visiting them sometimes.”

Jiya: “네. 그런데 용훈은 똑똑하네요! 어차피 우리는 지야와 용훈을 가끔 방문할 거예요.” (10)

Minakshi: “Yonghun can also visit us any time he wants to. By the way, shall we do a small ceremony to confirm the relationship of Yonghun and Jiya?”

Jiya: “용훈이는 필요할 때 언제든지 우리와 만날 수 있어요. 마지막으로, 용훈이와 지야의 관계를 확인하기 위해 작은 의식을 준비해도 될까요?” (11)

Subin: “네! 좋은 생각이에요.” (12)

Jiya: “Yes! That’s a great idea.”

The next day everyone went to the jewellery store and picked two beautiful rings for the ceremony. At home, they had a small ring ceremony with the presence of all the close family members at home. The day coincided with the South Korean New Year’s Day called ‘설날’ (Seollal). Just like Yonghun and Boyong, Jiya also bowed down to Yonghun’s parents and gave them a special greeting named ‘세배’ (Sebae), which young South Korean people do to their parents on the New Year’s Day. As a gift, his parents gifted their children and Jiya the traditional South Korean dress named ‘한복’ (Hanbok), which is only to be worn on special events. Rajiv and Minakshi also gifted some Indian snacks which they got specially packed for the family along with a beautiful red saree for Subin.

After almost a week of staying in South Korea, they returned back to India. Yonghun’s mother, Subin was considerate enough to cook only vegetarian version of the popular South Korean food 김밥 (Kimbap), 김치 (Kimchi) and 잡채밥 (Japchaebap) for Jiya and her family while they stayed at Yonghun’s home. Everyone in the family loved her cooking. 

After returning to India, one day Rajiv said to Minakshi, “Why don’t we get Jiya to marry Yonghun? I still do not consider them living together as a good deed. Every one of our relatives has been asking me why I did not get them married instead? We can never trust the foreigners, what if he breaks up and ends up leaving Jiya?”

Minakshi completely disagreed with her husband and said, “No you are thinking it in a wrong way. Do you remember, Jiya said that she does not want to feel restricted by the traditional customs and only wants a live in relationship for now, yet she agreed to do the engagement because we asked her to. If she agreed to what we said, then we should also agree to what she wants. A better understanding can only be accomplished between the older generation and newer generation if we try to understand both the sides and find the middle ground. Both the sides should learn how to compromise and adjust with one another. If Yonghun and Jiya decided to get engaged and respect us, we are ought to do the same for them. Besides, do Indians never have divorces and breakups? People all over the world are the same, we should not take nationality into account; and remember how innocent and sweet his family members were? Yonghun seems to be the same! Rather than listening to our relatives, we should listen to our daughter because this is about her life, studies, career and independence. And as Yonghun’s parents already mentioned before, we should always stay in touch with them to guide them through difficulties and support them in hardships. Now tell me, do you still think that I am wrong?”

“Hmm, now that you have said, I think you are absolutely correct. I was going to force my wishes upon them. We both should participate equally and make this work together; half and half!” said Rajiv in a content manner. 

FOOTNOTES

1. Do you know that Yonghun is living together with our daughter, Jiya? 

2. Yes, Yonghun introduced us to Jiya once, while we were video chatting with him.

3. Can you tell us what you think about this relationship? 

4. To be honest, live in relationship is not considered as a bad thing in South Korea, nowdays. If Jiya was a South Korean, we would have seen her as a close friend of Yonghun, but we know the culture of India. We are aware that such a relationship only develops when a couple plans to get married later in India. So now, we think of her as a member of our family.

5. We like Jiya a lot. We want her to give us as much love as we give to her. 

6. We would be really happy if our son’s life partner is someone who will always promise to stay by his side. Otherwise, relationships these days do not even last one year.

7. We would also like it if we get to connect to kind people like you (to Chimin) through our children.

8. Finally, we understood why South Koreans are so well behaved and why Jiya decided to live with Yonghun.

9. We will always be in touch with Jiya and Yonghun through phone and video call. If we ever feel that they are about to take a wrong step in their life, we will try to make them understand and if you feel that way too, please do not hesitate to talk about it with Yonghun.

10. Yes, but Yonghun is a smart man! Anyway, we will be visiting them sometimes.

11. Yonghun can also visit us any time he wants to. By the way, shall we do a small ceremony to confirm the relationship of Yonghun and Jiya?

12. Yes. That's a great idea.

SELF REFLECTIVE ESSAY

After joining a Design programme in my post graduation, I started missing the place where I came from, English Literature! I was a student of Ambedkar University Delhi even while pursing my bachelor degree in English Literature and wanted to visit my first home once again while pursuing my master degree. That’s when I decided to opt for ‘Ways of Reading’, it seemed very interesting just at the first glimpse of its course outline. 

We started out with the poems module, and being introduced to new poets whom I have not read before, was exactly what I was longing for, in my first year of post graduate studies. Elizabeth Bishop’s poems had a great impact on me. The thought which fascinated me the most about her poems was that she wrote just enough to get her poems’ objectives through the readers but at the same time gave them enough independence to interpret the entire poem. My favourite poem of hers would be ‘The Fish’. It is a lovely poem, not just because of its meticulous description of the fish but also because contrary to our notion of taking living sea creatures like fish just as a source of our food and entertainment, the poems portrays it as a powerful symbol of maturity and experience.

Next was the graphic novel module. We discussed the popular graphic novel named MAUS by Art Spiegelman, and even though I had read MAUS before, the classes dedicated to MAUS seemed completely new to me. This time, unlike literature classes where we discuss content of the piece of literature in our hands, we discussed how to view the graphic novel. The impact that different sizes of the panels make on the readers, the representation of time in the novel, etc. were some of the chief points discussed. Being a lover of graphic novels, the book which came up next made my heart fill with joy. We were shown the graphic novel named ‘Understanding Comics’ by Scott McCloud and the way Scott McCloud used comics to make the readers understand comics was purely genius! It inspired me to practise making comics of my own too, which I would love to publish someday, if I get a chance. 

While we had our regular classes, we did small activities within the class as well, which I think were the most interesting part of the entire course. We were asked to write short poem on a photo shown to us, or a small paragraph from a book was given to us and we had to make a graphic panel from that short description. Not just that, but we were then asked to exchange our work with the classmate sitting right next to us. It was fascinating how other people perceived the exact paragraph in an absolutely different way and opened our gates to thinking in a more diverge way. 

The two day workshop which took place within the class by Aditi Rao was extremely interesting. It was about metaphors and we discussed about metaphors that I was not even aware of. For me, every metaphor was just… a metaphor! Besides that, we had small writing activities as well. We were asked to think of one feeling or emotion and were given a set of questions, which then we had to fill in relation to the emotion that we picked. Free writing was also an exercise which I learnt about. We were asked to free write about emotion for a couple of minutes and it is something which helped me then and has been helping me till date and might even continue to do so further in life. If I feel angry or sad about anything, I love to free write it now. It makes me feel so much better about everything and every time I complete writing it, I fee like a new me, having gained some experience from the sad event. 

An essential module of the course was fiction, and we read the novel, ‘The God of Small Things’ by Arundhati Roy in that module. More than liking the novel, the thing which stuck to me were the classes which were dedicated to the discussion related to the controversies surrounding the introduction of Annihilation of Caste, written by Arundhati Roy. The main issue emerging out was the fact that Arundhati Roy, not being a Dalit herself was writing about the Dalit. It reminded me of my own Post graduate programme. My major is Social Design and it is a Social Designer’s duty to understand the people (especially the minorities) and design solutions for their problems. But the most important job of a Social Designer is to participate with the target audience to design the solution. We cannot resolve a problem unless we have faced it ourselves and if we try to design the solution of a problem which we have not faced then definitely the best way to solve is through participation design which is exactly the point which Arundhati Roy seemed to have missed while writing the introduction.

In the end, the module where we had John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ as a book and series of videos was pretty interesting. Once again, I was able to connect it to the studies that I am pursuing currently. In our first semester of Social Design programme, we had a course named ‘Learning to See’, where we had to go out and explore the world and put our perspective of the world on paper (or 3D). A lot of things talked about and shown in the series of videos were devices that I used to design interventions for my projects.

Overall, the course was very enriching touching different modules in a short amount of time. I learnt a lot of different tools and this course was a much needed break from my daily life revolving around design.