LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 24:7 July 2024
ISSN 1930-2940

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         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

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Role of Cognitive Abilities and Empirical Experiences for Survival during Calamities: A Study of Angry River

Suresh Kumar


Courtesy: www.amazon.com

Abstract

This paper explores the struggle of Individuals for survival during natural calamities i.e. floods and showcases how their cognitive abilities help them maintain their existence in disaster-like situations. While presenting the helplessness of the old man that forces him to settle down on an island despite the knowledge of the danger of the river during the rainy season, and the empathetic nature of the villagers, it showcases the children learning life lessons from their elders using their cognitive abilities and their own empirical experiences. This paper also reveals how the children suffer from alienation, pine for company and find respite with toys, flora and fauna.

Keywords: Angry River, Ruskin Bond, cognitive abilities, survival, natural calamities, helplessness, island, empirical experiences, flora and fauna.

Ruskin Bond (b. 1934) projects a child named Sita as the protagonist of his novella Angry River (1972). Sita lives on an Island amidst a big river with his grandparents. She has lost her mother in her childhood and her father lives in the town as he has a job there. Her grandparents have built a hut beside a huge rock beneath an old peepul tree. The rock serves as a wall of the hut having three mud walls. Her grandfather has a small boat which is used to catch fish and is a medium of family transportation. Her grandparents have three goats, two hens and a cock. Besides, they grow vegetables in a small patch of land. All these contribute to their economy on that isolated island. Once Sita’s grandmother falls ill due to a heavy fever and her Grandfather takes her to a hospital in a town, Shahganj with three goats in his boat instructing Sita what to do if the water level rises to the hut in his absence. Sita remains alone and has a terrible experience realizing the need of society for survival. When ultimately she meets with her grandfather, she finds her grandmother is no more and they return to the Island with two goats to settle there even after that horrible calamity.

Angry River has a setting of an Island where Sita lives with her grandparents. The island is situated in the middle of the big river that begins in the mountains and ends in the sea. The river swept around the Island, sometimes touching its banks, but never went over it. The novelist writes, "It was over twenty years since the river had flooded the island, and at that time no one had lived there. But for the last ten years, a small hut had stood there, a mud-walled hut with a sloping thatched roof. The hut had been built into a huge rock, so only three of the walls were mud, and the fourth was rock” (1).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Suresh Kumar
Assistant Professor, SLET, UGC-NET
Department of English
Govt. College Indora, 176401
Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India
Email: vijaysuresh8890@gmail.com
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