English Language and Literature Ensnared in Indian Classrooms: A Critique of Polie Sen Gupta's Keats was a Tuber

Abstract

The legacy gifted to us by the British East India Company in the form of English Language has been
accepted graciously but is misrepresented every now and then to suit the demands of our ever
evolving school and college classrooms. English language teachers execute a mammoth task as
they not only teach the subject but an ideology. This language was considered as a potential tool to
unite the country fragmented by a thousand socio-cultural identities, but has become a tool of
hegemony and has burnt the bridges between many a cultures. It is believed that learning of this
language will transform the life of many, even though Indian sensibilities have always seen a clash
with the imperialism imposed by this Language. Despite vacillating between the contrasting forces
of accepting and discarding the language, the love for it still continues to mount. The Paper
attempts to study similar issues through Poile Sen Gupta's play Keats was a Tuber. Written in
1996, the play discusses the structure and relationship of English Language and Literature
(especially romantic poetry), its teachers and students in an Indian Classroom