Dublinwale: Door to door
But you can never see that door because… well, the story's not true. The final residence of Delhi's great literary figure actually fell into dereliction. At one point, it was used as a coal warehouse.
This wasn't exactly the kismet of Dublin's great writer James Joyce—but we'll get there. His novel Ulysses is famously contained into a single day, 16 June, and that date is celebrated worldwide as Bloomsday, named after the novel's hero. To celebrate the iconic city-novel, this reporter is in Dublin for Bloomsday 2025, with Delhiwale briefly becoming Dublinwale.
In Ulysses, Mr Leopold Bloom lives on 7, Eccles Street. While the character of Mr Bloom is fiction, a house actually stood on this address. It was razed in 1967. The door and the surrounding brickwork was rescued by a committed Joycean and it is now installed in the courtyard of James Joyce Centre on North Great George's Street (see left photo with Josh Newman, a staff member of the Center). The door is a literary souvenir, possessing a Joycean sentence of its own—'He (Mr Bloom) pulled the halldoor to after him very quietly, more, till the footleaf dropped gently over the threshold, a limp lid.'
One can only make conjectures about Ghalib's darwaza. It must have resembled the few arched doors that still stand in random parts of Old Delhi. Was it like the spiky darwaza in Pahari Bhojla? Or like the ones in Gali Arya Samaj, testimonies of Delhi's long-ago architecture?
In Dublin, old doors appear to be greater in numbers than in Delhi. They in fact constitute the city's signature look, as essential to its personality as Eiffel is to Paris. All these doors look the same, borne out of Georgian architecture, dating from eighteenth and nineteenth century. And yet, because of the dizzying variety of colours, they look profoundly different from each other. Rare for two adjacent doorways to be painted in the same shade. Take the doors of the aforementioned Eccles Street. Red, brown, yellow, blue, green, white. And suddenly, on Frederick Street, the door to house no. 13 is pitch black. This afternoon, round the next turn, a Dubliner is standing on the threshold of his apartment. The door is open. The citizen is boldly facing the busy street, busily trimming his moustache (See other photo).
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hindu
5 days ago
- The Hindu
Why we need to look beyond marks, grades and percentiles
During admission season, marks, grades and percentiles are the talk of the town. A staggering number of students have scored very high marks and outstanding grades. Some have managed to score centum even in arts subjects. But this raises a question: is there a strong correlation between marks and competencies? Sadly, the answer is no. Problems Where is the gap and how should it be addressed? Most teachers, including those in colleges and universities, are generous in awarding marks and grades so that they do not invite criticism that their students have not performed well in exams. The assessment pattern itself also subtly promotes high grades. Most questions are remember-recall questions that only test rote memory. There are hardly any higher order questions that test the ability to think, analyse, evaluate and apply concepts and theories learnt in classrooms to real life. In many institutions, the Continuous Formative or Internal Assessment, which accounts for close to 40% of the total marks, is not rigorous. Teachers generously award anywhere between 70-90% on the argument that students need to be helped to come out in flying colours. The key question, therefore, is: do CGPAs help students progress to higher studies or in their employment prospects? Many students who score excellent marks are unable to secure admission in premier institutions for their Master's and research programmes or crack job interviews. This is a reflection of their cognitive capabilities and the educational system. Their CGPAs have given them a false sense of excellence. Strategies How can this be set right? By creating and promoting an ecosystem with a decent correlation between student competencies and grades. Bloom's Revised Taxonomy talks about six levels of knowledge and question papers should deal with all of them. Higher order questions that talk about analysis, critiques and evaluation and the translation of concepts and theories into realities are crucial. When confronted regularly with challenging questions that are not memory-based, students will be forced to think and sharpen their cognitive capabilities. Certain key education outcomes such as multiculturalism and adaptability cannot be quantified and assessed using traditional benchmarks of excellence but they are vital to one's growth and societal development. Students should be helped to think beyond CGPAs and transition to the real world where skills and competencies, both cognitive and meta-cognitive, matter. They should realise that critical thinking, problem-solving and communication skills and emotional intelligence are crucial to navigate the complexities of life. They should be encouraged to go beyond textbooks, exams, and grades and step into the real world where they will be assessed not by their marks and grades but by their cognitive capabilities and humane qualities. This requires student-centric classrooms that promote thinking skills with an emphasis on analysis, interpretation and application and offer adequate space to raise questions and express diverse points of view on academic and non-academic topics. The obsession with marks and grades should be replaced by a focus on life-skills that will prepare future-ready citizens who can contribute to making the world a better place to live in. In the final analysis, higher educational institutions should promote an ecosystem that weans students away from a memory-based educational system and nurtures their thinking capacities. Administrators, teachers and parents should realise that there should be a transition from classrooms to the real world fraught with multiple challenges. The whole exercise calls for a re-think on the notion of excellence. Traditionally, excellence in academic circles was equated with enviable CGPAs where students were graded on the basis of predetermined criteria. We need to re-visit and re-define excellence not so much in terms of marks and grades but in terms of students' ability to navigate the complex challenges of life. This obviously calls for going beyond marks, grades and percentiles. The writer is an Emeritus Professor, Gandhigram Rural Institute Deemed-to-be University. Email josephdorairaj@
Indian Express
03-08-2025
- Indian Express
Pune's Mirza Ghalib Road: A forgotten ode to the great Urdu poet
Stepping out from the Mandai metro station, one is greeted with the full flavour of the markets of old Pune: vegetable sellers, food joints, and shops selling everything from crockery to fake flowers sprawling from the chowk outside the station. However, to an observant eye, an unremarkable signboard informs that the street straight across is named after one of India's most remarkable poets—Mirza Ghalib. Born in Agra in 1797, Ghalib moved to Delhi at a young age and lived there till his death in 1869. A poet at the royal court of the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, Ghalib lived a testing life during tumultuous times. He witnessed the 1857 War of Independence firsthand and wrote heartbreaking accounts of his city's destruction. A humble memorial museum has been constructed at his haveli in Ballimaran at Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi. But not many refer to the road by its official name. Prakash Gandhi's grocery shop, just a few steps away from the signboard, was established over 60 years ago. However, he was not aware that the street is named after Ghalib. 'People call this Shukrawar Peth, Nehru Chowk. And now that the metro has come we say opposite the metro station. This is a problem everywhere, even where I stay people don't know the name of the street. Subhash Jagtap, the owner of an 88 year-old pan shop at said, 'The older people know that this is called Mirza Ghalib street. The name has been there since forever. But no one refers to it that way anymore. Everyone names the chowks.' When asked if he knew who Ghalib was, Jagtap said he was a 'shayar of the Muslims'. During his time, Ghalib challenged orthodoxy through shers like like Hum ko maloom hai jannat ki haqeeqat lekin, Dil ke khush rakhne ko 'Ghalib' ye khayal acha hai (I am well aware about the reality of heaven but, for the heart's comfort the thought is surely good). According to an account, a British Colonel named Brown, after looking at Ghalib's Turkish-style turban, asked him if he was Muslim. Ghalib replied by saying, 'Half', and when Brown asked what that meant, Ghalib explained, 'I drink wine but I don't eat pork.' Countless ghazals by Ghalib, like Hazaron Khwahishein Aisi, have been sung by Jagjit Singh and popularised among the masses in India. Recently, the Hindi movie Metro In Dino adapted Ghalib's ghazal Aah Ko Chahiye Ek Umr Asar Hote Tak into a soundtrack sung by Papon. The Mirza Ghalib Chowk is present a few hundred meters down the street. Neither the local shopowners nor people at the nearby Masjid knew about members of the 'Mirza Ghalib Chowk Samaj Seva Committee' mentioned on the board, or had any contacts for them. 'The nameplate saying Mirza Ghalib Chowk has been here since before I was born. People know the name of this chowk. But I don't really know who he is. I'll have to call two-three previous generations of my family for anyone to know that,' says Suraj, owner of the chowk's corner shop Shree Rajhans, with a laugh. Public memory of Mirza Ghalib at the street named after him in Pune is symbolic of the state of so many of India's great poets and musicians: everpresent, but not always remembered. Soham is a Correspondent with the Indian Express in Pune. A journalism graduate, he was a fact-checker before joining the Express. Soham currently covers education and is also interested in civic issues, health, human rights, and politics. ... Read More
The Hindu
02-08-2025
- The Hindu
How to rekindle the passion for reading in Literature classes
When I began teaching literature, I assumed my students would love the texts I held dear. However, my first term quickly disproved me of that notion. I discovered that many students believed reading the actual texts was unnecessary — as long as they could access story outlines and prepare a few essay answers using notes from senior students or guidebooks. This realisation was disheartening. I soon learned that I was not alone in this concern. Many colleagues had similar experiences. Over time, I began to reflect: Was the issue rooted in students' inability to read, or was it a general lack of interest? Gradually, I understood that the problem was not a lack of reading skills but rather an inertia toward reading itself. This led me to question how literature is taught, and more importantly, how we might rekindle genuine interest among students. Categorisation An often-overlooked factor in this discussion is the content and approach used in the classroom. English departments in colleges and universities typically organise their syllabi into categories like Romantic poetry, 19th-century fiction, or Shakespeare and offer specialised courses such as Literary Criticism that cover critics from Dryden to Eliot and theorists like I. A. Richards and Derrida. However, these are often treated as discrete, isolated units rather than interconnected frameworks to understand literature as a totality. Yet literature is a dynamic tapestry of voices, histories, and ideas. When students complete a literature course, they are rarely concerned with how many children Mrs. Bennet had in Pride and Prejudice or how William Empson conceptualised ambiguity. These details may seem trivial and, as a result, students may disengage from the larger experience of reading and thinking about literature. The solution lies in reimagining the way we teach literature: moving from rote learning to critical engagement. One effective strategy is to encourage students to explore meaning through inquiry. For instance, instead of summarising the plot of Wuthering Heights, invite students to investigate the idea of 'home' in the novel. When studying Bama, ask students to reflect on how personal struggle shape her memoir. How is valour part of a poem such as Tennyson's Ulysses or Tithonus? Such questions prompt deeper analysis and personal engagement. Equally essential is grounding literature in its geographical, historical, and social contexts. Students should research the era in which a work was written, examine the prevailing social conditions, and discuss its relevance in today's world. Literature should not be studied in isolation; it must be connected to the lived reality. Literary theory Incorporating literary theory into this process is vital. Rather than treating theory as a separate academic requirement, we must integrate it into the act of reading itself. Encourage students to ask how meaning is produced, how interpretations evolve, and how themes are constructed and deconstructed. This ensures that theory becomes a tool for engagement, not just abstraction. Students should also be encouraged to write reflectively about their personal responses to texts. Whether analysing a poem or a novel, articulating their thoughts fosters a deeper, more meaningful connection with literature. Without this reflective practice, literature can appear as nothing more than a disconnected compilation of texts. Moreover, cultural, and philosophical dimensions should be woven into literary studies. Students must be shown how texts help us understand humanity and that this is the broader quest they carry into the world. In our digital age, we can enhance engagement by inviting students to create short films or perform plays based on the texts they study. They can use AI tools to visualise the setting of a play, trace intertextual connections, or retell classic stories in contemporary contexts. Finally, creating space for classroom debates and discussions is essential. These exchanges foster independent thinking and help students see literature as a living dialogue, not a closed book. By adopting these strategies, we can transform the teaching of literature into a dynamic, engaging experience that encourages students to read not just for exams, but for life. The writer is a former Professor of English, Pondicherry University.
