AGRICULTURE

‘Need to increase area under fruit cultivation’
From Our Correspondent

LUDHIANA, Feb 15 — “Fruits offer a great potential for diversification and Punjab needs to increase area under the fruit cultivation by almost 15 times. At present the area is mere 0.4 per cent, whereas the Johl Committee has recommended that the area should be increased to 6 per cent.”

These views were expressed by Dr K.S. Aulakh, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, PAU, while inaugurating a two-day workshop at PAU, here today. Nearly 700 officers from different parts of the state were attending the workshop. Dr Aulakh further added that the lack of adequate infrastructure for processing of fruits and vegetables was imposing the major hindrance in increasing the area.

Dr Aulakh disclosed that only half per cent of the fruits and vegetables, produced in India, were processed, whereas in developed countries more than 70 per cent of fruits and vegetables were processed, preserved and canned for use throughout the year. Therefore, we need to create infrastructure for grading, processing and storage of fruits and vegetables, he observed. This value addition could serve as a good incentive to attract the farmers for diverting the area from wheat, paddy to fruits, vegetables and flowers.

Dr K.S. Sandhu, Director, Horticulture, Punjab, congratulated the PAU scientists for developing excellent varieties of chilies, musk melon and bhindi. He further suggested that proper technology should be developed for production of flowers during April to August. At present, Punjab had to depend on other states for flowers during these months.

He also requested the scientists to standardise the doses and time of the application of weed-killers with a view to minimise their consumption and bring down their residual level in the fruits and vegetables. Dr Sandhu also suggested that irrigation methods and schedule should be standardised through well designed experiments to save water which was becoming a rare commodity.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr M.S. Bajwa, Director, Research, PAU, said pesticides residue in fruits and vegetables was of great concern in the forthcoming WTO regime. “Unless we develop a chain of quality control laboratories throughout the state, we will not be able to check the higher levels of pesticide residue.” He also stressed the need for better irrigation management in orchards. Dr J.S. Kolar, Director, Extension Education, proposed a vote of thanks.

CULTURE

Aesthetic significance of Punjabi novel

THE genre of the novel has for long been considered a medium for conveying thoughts, feelings and experiences. Generally the events are narrated in a chronological order and the character are delineated from the outside. The endeavour has all along been first to rouse the curiosity of the reader and then to make him ask for more. Many a time the reader has to go through the process of ‘the willing suspension of disbelief’. True happenings and real characters are considered to be the right stuff for fictional writings. From the delineation of the individual character to the depiction of domestic life to the presentation of the social scenario has been, till recently, the main stages, in the development of the novel.

The change in novel writing occurred in the first quarter of the 20th century with the publication of the novels of Marcel Proust, Dorothy Richardson and James Joyce. The emphasis shifted from the depiction of the actors of the characters to the stream of consciousness of their minds. The interior monologue came to be of sole interest to the reader. Virginia Woolf declared that ‘all novels deal with character.’

Henry James said all narrative is written from a certain perspective and the matters related to narrative voice and point of view form a major part of the discussion of fiction. He insisted that the narrative voice be purified of the kind of authorial commentary that interfered with the narrative flow. The author has to become invisible ‘like the God of the creation, who remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails’. In this manner, the narrative became impersonal and objective.

Still the role of technique and form in enhancing the aesthetics of the novels cannot be denied. Mark Schorere claims “technique alone objectifies the material of art; hence technique alone evaluated those materials.” “The virtue of the modern novelist,” says Schorere, “from James and Conrad onwards, is not only that he pays so much attention to his medium, but that, when he pays most, he discovers through it a new subject matter, and a greater one.” He then echoes Virginia Woolf’s recognition that to treat the subject matter of contemporary human nature authors must develop appropriate techniques that will not simply present their subjects, but actually discover those subjects through articulating them in fiction. In this manner, the novel has been recognised as an art form and its aesthetic aspects have an edge over its ethical ramifications.

Punjabi novel, during the past one hundred years, has made tremendous progress from merely telling a story in a convincing manner to the delineation of character in an artistic manner. It is the atmosphere of the mind of the character that is now being depicted. Mostly the device of interior monologue has been employed to lay bare before the reader the very texture of modern sensibility.

Now passions spin the plot and for this purpose, different techniques and various narrative modes are employed. Imagination does not invent, but is involved in knitting together the events and delineating there characters. The Punjabi novelist is now aware of narratology, that implies a systematic knowledge of narrative modes.

— by N.S. Tasneem