Tales from an English Teacher

  Translated Gender Roles in A Terrible Matriarchy  1. Grandmother Vibano as Enforcer of Patriarchy Despite being a woman, Vibano imposes the most rigid and limiting gender expectations on her granddaughter, Dielieno.She believes girls must be trained early to serve, cook, and obey, while boys are to be pampered and prepared for public life.Shows that women can perpetuate patriarchal norms, complicating the idea that only men enforce gender hierarchies. 2. Gendered Chores and Unequal Labour Dielieno is overburdened with household duties; fetching water, cooking, cleaning, while her brothers are free to study or play.Vibano scolds Dielieno for wanting to study like her brothers.Illustrates how domestic roles are assigned based on gender, and how girls are trained to accept this division. 3. Denial of Education for Girls Vibano believes formal education is unnecessary for girls.“What good will it do a girl to read so much?” she asks when Dielieno shows interest in books.Educatio...

 Questioning the Universe: Science and Philosophy Science fiction frequently draws upon scientific ideas not merely to imagine advanced technologies or futuristic worlds, but to raise deeper philosophical questions about the universe and the meaning of human existence. Stephen Hawking’s TED talk “Questioning the Universe” emphasizes that science begins with curiosity-by asking fundamental questions about where the universe came from, how it works, and what humanity’s place within it might be. Science fiction builds upon this same impulse, transforming scientific concepts into narrative thought experiments that explore existence on both cosmic and personal scales. One of the key ways science fiction engages philosophy is through its use of cosmology and astrophysics. Hawking discusses the vastness of the universe and humanity’s attempt to understand its origins through theories such as the Big Bang. Science fiction often extends these scientific frameworks into imaginative scenarios...

K. Satchidanandan – Introduction K. Satchidanandan is one of the most influential contemporary Indian poets, critics, translators, and cultural thinkers writing primarily in Malayalam. His poetry often speaks from the perspectives of the silenced and the excluded—the mad, the oppressed, the voiceless.Apart from being a major poet, K. Satchidanandan is also a respected literary critic and translator. “The mad have no caste / or religion.” The poem opens by rejecting rigid social hierarchies. “The mad” are placed outside oppressive structures like caste and religion, suggesting a freedom unavailable to so-called “normal” society. “They transcend / gender, live outside / ideologies.” Madness here is portrayed as transcendence. Gender and ideology—systems that define, restrict, and discipline identity—do not bind them. “We do not deserve / their innocence.” This line reverses conventional judgment: it is society, not the mad, that is morally lacking. Innocence belongs to those untouched by...

N. Ranjan’s “Of What Use” is an autobiographical, reflective narrative that traces the author/narrator’s life experiences to expose how caste discrimination operates subtly and overtly within everyday social and, most disturbingly, educational spaces. The story moves episodically, following the narrator from childhood to adulthood, revealing how caste consciousness is slowly learned, imposed, and institutionalised. The story begins with the narrator’s first conscious encounter with caste, introduced not through society at large but through his mother. When he is admitted to a Government High School, she instructs him to identify himself as Pallan rather than Pallar to secure educational concessions. Until this moment, caste had not been a lived reality for the narrator. This incident marks the beginning of caste being etched permanently into his identity, not as pride, but as a bureaucratic and social label necessary for survival. The narrative then moves to village life, where communa...