Ms Sandhyakamala has published number of papers such as “Quotidian Life of Indian Women : A Brief Study of Selected Novels of Upamanyu Chatterjee” in International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences; “Quotidian Nation : A Study of English August: An Indian Story” in Literary Oracle; “Reading the Quotidian Nation” in an international conference on ‘Epistemic Value of English Literature: A Global Perspective’ organized by Department of English and Comparative Literature, Madurai Kamaraj University, July 2021 She also worked briefly as an independent assistant for a Multinational publishing concern for their digitalisation of various journals before joining Mangalore University and as a Guest Lecturer in the PG department of Mangalore University from 2014 to 2020. She has been awarded the Smt. Vasanthi S. Ananthanarayana Cash Award for Literary Criticism for the year 2012 by Mangalore University. She worked as a Guest Lecturer in the PG Department of Mangalore University from 2014 to 2020. She has submitted her PhD thesis on “The presentation of Nation through the portrayal of the Quotidian in the novels of Upamanyu Chatterjee”.
Around 26 members including students and lecturers participated in this session.
Dr. Zubaida, Head of the P.G. Department of English, introduced and welcomed the chief guest. The speaker explained the phrase “reading the everyday” through different perspectives. She spoke on how people categorize individuals into different spaces based on the stereotypes of looks, age etc. by giving her own example; and how everyday is considered ordinary, monotonous and boring, while it is very important. She demonstrated how we read everyday through cues or signs such as body language. She also talks about individuals’ meaning of everyday, culture in everyday, means of resistance in everyday, identity crisis etc. According to her, ‘everyday’ is about ordinary and non-ordinary, linear and cyclical, inclusiveness and exclusiveness, power and powerlessness etc. She illustrated literary texts such as Pride and Prejudice, Kanthapura, Anandamath, “Dark room” to talk on resistance, class divisions, defamiliarization, othering (discrimination) and similar concepts.
She concluded by saying that we need to look at the ordinary and accept ourselves within the ordinary. After her lecture the students were given time to interact with her, where she brought in the ideas of quotidian nation, welfare state, murder of the English language, the quotidian in the Indian nation. At the end, student representative Sarah Monis gave the vote of thanks, and a token of gratitude was offered by Dr Zubaida.
