Ladies and gentlemen by transcription we take you now behind the scenes of a pulley headquarters in a great American city Or under the cold glaring lights will pass before us the innocent the vagrant the thief The murderer this is the lineup. See you later. Yeah. See you there. Do you think you have the man? No, I don't know if you see anybody that looks familiar at all. I want you to speak up Will you be many people to choose from? I'll be quite a few Sergeant cargo suspect raise his voice talk higher Identify anybody who walked into a store with a silk stocking over his head pretty tough. You ever try it? I've seen it You know whoever this guy is he's smart He's done all three jobs on Monday morning. That's smart. He gets the take for two full days His bakeries are open on Sunday. Sounds like he might have worked for the bakery. Yeah, I know somebody who works for him He wouldn't know how to find those four safes unless he was well informed about six one Yeah, wait around 180 Where's brown hat leather jacket and the silk stocking over his face good coffee carries a gun revolver I hope we get him before someone scares him and he starts using it You got the rest of the bakeries staked out. Yeah, our men will cover from Sunday night till Tuesday morning Can't spare them any longer Yes, Ray. That's crying man silk stocking boy. I take Celsius your bakery and shot a guy killin Excelsior bakery. Oh, okay. Pete now take it Something hot guy with silk stocking just held up another bakery shot someone Then yeah This isn't Monday Girl in the store. Who's the man checker for the bakery just making her rounds talk to the girl Yeah, no, I've been too busy getting you in the ambulance down here. I only see what she has to say Taking to the hospital a little more after he gets her this little tenant Guthrie and Sergeant cargo They'd like to ask you some questions. I hope I can help. Did you get a good look at the man miss beading a good look? Yes, it was horrible. He looked like Well, I can't describe it his face was all pushed out of shape under his silk stocking same guy How did it happen? It all started after I'd given him the money. He made you open the safe Yes, the floor safe. He made me go into the back of the store with him. I was scared stiff Well, we got into the storeroom and he made me open the safe Then he told me to put all the money into the bread bag. I Did it as fast as I could I just wanted him to leave to get out of the shop And what happened then then he made me lie down on the floor Just I done what he said the bell on the front door rang. It was the checker from the bakery, mr. Burns Go ahead. Well the bell rang and this robber made me get up and go out to see what was He told me to wait on them as though nothing had happened Said he'd have his gun on me not to make any slips. I've never been so scared in my life How did he know it was mr. Burns? How did he know? Well, I guess when I started talking to him mr. Burns that is Almost fainted when I saw who it was. Why did you try to warn him mr. Burns? No, I was so scared that I just stood there Had only done something not just relax try to take it easy and take your time Yes, sir. I knew that mr. Burns had come to check the store and they'd go into the back of the store Oh, I could do with stand there. I tried to talk but nothing would come out Finally, I asked mr.  Burns. No, we just laughed and made a joke about my having a boyfriend in the back of the store The robber must have gotten scared when mr. Burns laughed because that's when he My gosh, I'm getting the shakes look at me. Yeah, sit down. I'll be all right Funny, I was pretty good till I started telling you about it. You want to tell us the rest? Yeah, sure I'll be all right well Mr. Burns was still laughing when I heard the first shot It all happened so fast and I was so frightened. Hey, you said first Sean how many shots will fire how many oh Three I think I was looking at mr. Burns when the first one hit him He stopped laughing I'll never forget his face. Did he shoot at you? I don't think so. He fired two more times as I remembered mr. Burns spun around and fell in the counter Right over there the dark found three holes and burned What happened then the man ran out the front door? I ran after him and yelled for the police man of the street called in that's when I got the call This beaty can you remember if the holed-up man touched anything if there was any place where he might have left fingerprints? Let me see. Oh I don't think I'd remember if he did get all the information on this beaty. We want a statement right? I hope you catch him. We will This guy isn't gonna be easy. He'll slip. I always do. Yeah And in the meantime, he's not able to fill up this hospital. There's the doc. Hope he has something good to say No, so hello Guthrie You look as tired as I fail. Yeah, I'm tired. All right. How about burns can't tell yet? He's still out just wheeled him out of surgery took three slugs out of the center abdomen What would they look like 38th sent them over to Charlie in the lab. Don't shake. They were steel jackets Otherwise Burns wouldn't have any stomach at all must have been fired a close range Powder burns on his shirt according to the witness. He was about 10 feet away I sent the clothes down to Charlie in the lab Charlie's gonna be tired, too Have any leads on who did it no no a thing What does he look like you ever see a man with a silk stocking pull over his head? Not a bit makes identification almost impossible Stocking thinking about trying it might not be a bad idea when I want to sneak out of the house I'll take care of yourself in get some sleep. I'll try send you over some vitamins. Thanks Nice guy. Yeah, we think we've got a tough job Won't show himself for a while after using that gun me mind so far. He's been taking nothing but chances Sure crossed us up pulling a job on Wednesday. Yeah, he's smart. Yeah Two days tank again, how do you figure bank holiday yesterday? I'll be done. Let's see what the lambs got What do you got for us Charlie got these 38 Find anything in the bakery man. That's a little girl. Give me some coffee cake to take home anything official Nothing yet the victim was shot from about 10 feet. Yeah, we know that he wants some coffee cake No, thanks. You shouldn't be eating that stuff Charlie.  I'll be really worried. Well, let's know you find anything Honest Charlie can't stay healthy with all that weight Well, I'm gonna stake those bakeries out on a 24-hour schedule if it's just one man You know, what's up coin? I got shot in the bakery was burnt. Now. What about a doc Gerson just called from the hospital burns died What about his family? I'm going over there now. Yeah, I got a killer to catch now Action awaits you every week CBS radios big town Wednesday nights on most of these same stations is where editor Steve Wilson and his staff are fighting newsman and women Come to grips with criminals and killers and there's action-packed listening every minute Don't miss the latest big mystery extra in big town here that meets going up another four cents. Yeah Remember when you could get a hamburger for 15. Yeah, maybe we should be vegetarians and vegetables are up, too Why don't you read the funnies? Uh-huh Food keeps going up. We have to give up. Yeah, sure. I can just see you That's saying anything about burns getting shot. Yeah Silk stocking killer. I don't sell papers police baffled always with baffled Why don't they say anything about the ones we wrap up in a hurry police not bad Come on don't hog it. Yeah, read the funnies better than this menu. What's the matter with the menu? You read it lately. I Make it up. I didn't think it looked real Here Two hamburger steaks in a hurry.  Yeah with that That's what this is all about. What do you mean the bag the money was in came from the Berkshire bakery and Davis Arthur Davis Mr. Davis. Yeah We're police officers. Mr. Davis. Oh, come in. Come in. Come in. Thank you. Now. This is I thought you were coming right over. I called a good 15 minutes. Oh, I thought you'd be right over here Well, we were having the money's in the other room in the sack William. Oh now what's the matter with you like policemen. I guess you don't like police. I guess not. I guess the end of police dog Oh, there's the money Do you mind telling us how you found it? I dug it up. I told one of your men on the floor. Didn't he tell you? Well, he was a little vague I saw some fella burying it. I was out walking with Yeah, I was out walking him and I saw this fella burying something. What do you fellas call yourself? Well, I'm Guthrie Davis Arthur did Now, how do you do it? I'm sure he is I saw this fella out burying something. He was looking mighty suspicious Oh, yes, he was looking around like an expectancy ghost or something. You think you'd recognize him again, Mr. David? Oh, it was way too dark. Well, didn't he see you? Well, how could it? Well, if you saw him. Well, I was on the road above him He couldn't see me but I could sure see him and William. He didn't open his mouth not once. He's a good dog You mind if I look at the bank, please? Oh, go ahead. Yeah $432. That's what I found. That's what you got. Would you mind showing us where you found this, Mr? Certainly, certainly $432. I didn't touch a bit of it. Hey, come on, William Let's show the fellas where we found the oh That's for me, Mr. Davis. Oh, yes, wait a minute. Why don't you say who you wanted? He asked for some fun of him Guthrie. Well, I'm Guthrie.  Now, you know, it's not polite to make all this racket when someone's trying to talk on the telephone Well, now I've told you one time. I've told you about it Okay, I'll get right over it Yeah, boy with a silk stocking Boy with a silk stock another bakery. Yeah, you stay here with mr. Davis.  Well, I show you well you show Sergeant Cog. Oh, I'm Cogger After he shows you're sending back to the house clients that are boys wounded So maybe you'll come back to dig up with the money, right be right there, mr. Davis Thanks a lot just up ahead, and then you turn right Just up ahead. I left sergeant. What's his name? Cogger. I left him up there. Oh, it's cold up there. Turn right Will you let me take warning with me you won't like me going out without a stop right here What's his name? He should be on it something. Yeah, the place where he buried the money's right down below the wall You don't have to get out mr. Davis. Well, don't you want me to show you where you showed Sergeant Cogger? Didn't you? Well, sure I showed him.  I took him back, Quine. Right. Well, look, I showed you where I dug up the money I'm sorry mr. Davis Come right back Quine. Give us a whistle Small stakeout a boy with a silk stocking came in and small covered him.  I'll tell you about it Small on the suspect shot it out small hitting but doesn't know how bad chased him with his mother traffic in that district Okay Which way does stocking face come up here? Davis didn't see him come up, but he says he left down that way. There's a golf course over there. Must come through it One of these not hurt too badly may come looking for his money and if he is hurt badly might save us some trouble Let a lot of pretty sure he had a car parked over on Adams a couple of people saw a man run up to a car and take off You all said it looked like he was hurt License number no Guy sure got a lot of nerve pressed his luck too far this time after killing burns You think he'd stay low for a while. You can think so Tell me about some people Wish I brought a heavy coat Wish it brought to once last time over that way cold sure it is What time is it about 9 30? Used to be pretty good. I never could get interested in that game. That's great That pounded a beat for a lot of years and had enough walking. Oh, it's it's great exercise. This is all the exercise I'll ever want for him freezing He's a boy let him get to the hole. What's when the dog sounds like it's coming. Let's take a look Eddie Dunstetter Featured in tonight's cast were Jack Moyle the Sergeant Pete Cogger with Joel Samuels Virginia Greg Howard McNeer Harry Lang Jim Bacchus and Dave light the lineup was transcribed in Hollywood by Jaime Del Valle 2000 affiliated societies in every state the District of Columbia and in Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico These societies provided medical care therapy home teaching camping and workshops the established employment services Cerebral palsy centers and rehabilitation centers for persons of all races and creeds Still there remain in this country thousands of crippled children who need care You can help reach more of them by contributing generously to Easter Seals If you know a crippled child or adult who needs help call the crippled children's society in your county Remember to help crippled children and adults contribute generously to your Easter Seals Society Give to Easter Seals and support this work Listen to the lineup next week April 1st immediately following life with Luigi and the Luella parson show That's next week April 1st take one healthy jigger of jollity Add a heaping round of madness mix in liberal portions of willy lump lump dead I the mean little kid and other assorted creations from Red Skelton's scrapbook of satire and you have the complete recipe for CBS radios one and only Red Skelton show on Wednesday nights if it's fun. You're after don't miss red Skelton every Wednesday night over most of these same CVS radio stations Wednesday night has been Crosby night on the CBS Radio Network


So, it is my great pleasure to now introduce Karen Gilliland, who is the Chief Executive of the New Zealand College of Midwives, with 50 years midwifery and nursing experience, including teaching, research, governance and management. She's represented midwifery on numerous fora, such as the Nursing Council, Pharmac Board, was a Canterbury District Health Board member for six years, and a member of the International Confederation of Midwives ICM Board for 20 years. Karen also chaired the ICM Scientific Planning and Programming Committee, and currently co-chairs the ICM Regulation Standing Committee. Karen co-authored the midwifery partnership, a model for practice, and women's business. The history of the New Zealand College of Midwives, and is the author of numerous published papers, articles and books. Karen was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to New Zealand and midwifery and women's health in 2000. She leads the High Court action on pay equity on behalf of the New Zealand College of Midwives. Welcome Karen. Sorry, thank you Gene for that. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay, thank you. Sarah, thanks very much for running through the history as well. I can remember the first time I did something and it sort of terrified me because I'm not particularly IT literate. So to see the progress is pretty amazing and for me to be sitting here and able to use it is even more amazing. Hello and good morning everybody from New Zealand. Kia ora, tātou, kia ora. Today I was really, really reflecting on the last couple of years we've had in New Zealand where the power of women's voices have actually made sure that midwives voices have been heard and I wanted to talk about that a little bit. How do I get, oh here we go. Yes, oh it's magic. Despite actually being an age-old profession, we still face major prejudice and predetermined bias and this bias is as you all know is a gendered one.  And the fact that our name is always associated with women, wise women, earth mother, mother of light means that we can't bypass how the world sees midwifery. But we also can't bypass how midwives actually, you know, the part that we pay in giving women voice, voice and choice as well. The relationships that we have with women and families is actually the key to progress and good relationships and public support rely on good midwifery. So everything is a catch-22 if we don't practice midwifery in a way that women want, then women don't want us. But advocacy and support is a daily feature of midwifery's lifestyle. And many New Zealand midwives have gone further to take part in political roles and governance roles. We have midwives who are mayors of cities, we have midwives who are MPs, we have midwives on hospital boards. All these things that midwives want to actually take part in a humane society and make a contribution to the way in which women and midwives are seen in society.  And most of them talk about what it is to actually be a midwife, that actually being a midwife is very endearing. And the sort of things that they talk about, I've just, you know, put down here and all of you will be aware of them. But at the top, I think, is the relationship one. And here in New Zealand, the partnership model is what dictates how we practice.  The partnership model here is in New Zealand, you know, what we say is that it's mutually empowering, that there's as much in it for midwives as there is for women. And the underlying principles of that, of course, are about, you know, the way in which the midwife and the woman negotiate what it is they want, that they both feel that they're on equal grounds to say what they want when they want. They share the responsibility of the decisions they make, and it's all based on informed choice and consent. And that, of course, relies on, that relies on midwives being good at what they do and good at relationships. So, when I talked to midwives recently, because we've been, you know, very conscious in the last few years here in New Zealand, that we've somehow got to educate the public more about what it is we do. And we said to them, well, what makes you a good midwife? And I just thought I'd give you a couple of examples of what midwives say. And they think, I think that they sort of should really resonate throughout the world where we are and whatever your model of care is. And this midwife was talking about the rhythm of birth and the emotional rollercoaster, and that she loves being part of that. And I mean, I'll let you read that. But the tears and laughter, the adrenaline, the peaceful calmness, I'm sure that most of us attending a woman in labour can relate to that. And then in New Zealand where we've got a continuity of care model, that midwife and her student in this picture, she knows that when she goes to visit her, that she'll actually see the impact of all those hours of work that she put into that woman and her family. And the falling in love process with the baby, midwives love all that. The other thing that midwife said a lot is that she knows that her involvement with this woman has changed that woman. And hopefully it is a positive change, but as you know, when working conditions and resources are not there, that change is difficult to achieve. But if I love this photo from the Solomons, where the young teenage woman is actually confident enough to wear the t-shirt, and she hit the midwives in the Solomons, we're completely able to talk about what the relationship was that they had with the woman as well in the same way as we do. It's sort of universal, isn't it? And then the other part of it is the whānau, or family involvement, is that whilst midwifery is women-centred, it's the woman who chooses all of those around her, and she sometimes chooses to be alone, but not very often, but she will choose to have a partner, she chooses to have a family.  I love that quote, I just think that underlines pretty much everything that we believe in. And of course, we've got to be proud of what we do, because if loving what you do makes it easier to get up in the night, but also the structures around us are pretty essential to sustain it. So loving midwifery in a way is not really enough in today's world. And, you know, so I thought, well, let's have a look at what the barriers are, what the barriers are in most countries, and all of this won't be news to you either. But, you know, pretty much everywhere women's work is taken for granted, and in the main, it's undervalued. I think New Zealand in the early 90s was the first country to be paid at the same rate as doctors who provided midwifery care, and we celebrated that a lot. We were aware that as soon as midwifery became the predominant provider of services, that it was probably unlikely we were going to retain that amount of value, and that's exactly what's happened here in New Zealand. So right throughout the world, I think that midwifery is constantly facing, valuing underpaid, and we read constantly all around the world about the stress that midwives are under.  But actually, if we're to do that, and New Zealand, we do do that, we can only do it if we're well supported and equitably funded. There has to be a value placed on midwifery, and we've spent quite a long time in New Zealand trying to fight for that. In the last couple of years, we've tried to take on a public education campaign, because even after 28 years, many of the public still really put the medical viewpoint on the pedestal above the midwifery's specialty knowledge. And successive governments, we've had a reasonably neoliberal right-wing government for the last nine years, and over that nine years, it failed dismally to support and pay midwifery properly, which is why we've ended up in this position of having to go back to women and say, help. So our public campaign has taken quite a few roads. We had to actually protest on some occasions we've had to take to the streets. In 2015, we actually went to the High Court, and we lodged a complaint against the government, we sued the government for gender discrimination, and we did it under the Bill of Rights. We never made it to court because the ministry actually came back and said, look, we will now talk and we will mediate. And for those of you who have ever been involved in any legal action, it is an extraordinarily expensive process. And the New Zealand midwives, I think, are to be congratulated in that they were prepared to take on that enormous cost to try and get a human rights principle seen and heard. I know the Canadians amongst you will feel this is very familiar to you, and I've talked a lot to your lawyers in the midwives that took your court case, and our lawyers talked to each other in Canada and New Zealand, but actually the issues are exactly the same. Most of the lawyers that we worked for us just couldn't believe the gender nature of it. In your day-to-day-to-life, if you're an educated person, people find it very hard to believe how insidious gender discrimination is. And I think over the years, New Zealand started to sort of try and drop that women-gender narrative and trying to get more family-based, all those things, but actually we probably should never have done that. We should have stuck to our knitting and called it a feminist issue, an agenda issue.  Every time a woman stands up, she has to stand up, better dressed for the better hairstyle, much more articulate, and it just gets too hard, and I think midwives in New Zealand just were so relieved to get the fact that they were autonomous and they were paid well, they all got on with being a midwife. And we sort of lost a little of our political drive. But boy have we got it back. We started a campaign called Midwives in Crisis, and it was interesting using the word crisis was something we've never done because in 28, 25 years we were always putting the positive on midwifery, saying that, you know, like midwifery is well-educated, midwifery is a proud profession, all these sorts of things. Never asking, never trying not to put a chink in our armour because in politics if women show any gap that someone can get in and destroy you, then that was our experience, that's what happened. But actually after the court case and the mediation taking so long, midwives just became quite despairing about change, and so we thought we need to rally the troops and we need to ask for help.  Could you not all just get behind the midwives? And that has been very successful, the midwives and women, they've all, every MP in the country has been visited. The other things that Regents of the College have done is that they designed postcards and thousands of postcards, just postcards written to the Prime Minister, written to the Minister of Health, the Minister of Women, they've gone through in the thousands. Some primary birthing units or birthing centres that have invited politicians for afternoon tea, showed them round, tokened them through, really trying to demonstrate what it is that we do. Lots of stories in the local media doing sort of case study type stories that people can relate to. And those over the last two years, it's built up and built up. And what we were building towards is sort of getting women to see that the service they got from their midwife on an individual level was actually under threat. And because, you know, I mean, we always took the view that we didn't want to undermine women's trust in the system. But actually in the end, in 1990, when we got the law changed, it was women's voices that came to the front that the politicians listened to. And some 28 years later, here we are again, right back at nobody listening to the profession and we needed women to be our voice again. And it is really extraordinary how they've done that. And so it's that, you know, the saying that it was very popular, women need midwives, need women, need midwives. It is so true. If we are not joined together and providing care in the way women want and recognise we can get lost. And I think the New Zealand midwives should be congratulated for carrying on for 28 years. And the same sort of support that they got 28 years ago, they got today. And we've been doing all sorts of protests and marching and getting help from all sorts of people. Rural women in New Zealand, we're very influential in New Zealand. And, you know, if in your country you've got groups of voting people that hold influence, those are the ones that can get to the politicians and rural women have been very supportive. We have journalists, a woman called Emily Wrights who's been really an amazing advocate for women. And we've got lots of those women consumers and they organised picmics on Parliament Law last year and another one this year. We even, and I want to say thank you so much to the international middle free community. The Dear David campaign was a sort of a grassroots movement with women and starting with rural women actually and rural midwives. And they started writing letters to the Minister of Health who was called David. And it became the most amazing grassroots movement and he received, I don't know how many, he's not telling us, but essentially the catch word was Dear David and then anyone and anyone was able to write in. And these are just a couple of examples of the thousands of letters. The Dunedin midwives who were the Minister of Health lives posted them all up on yellow sticky notes up on the Minister of Health's window. It was certainly very uplifting, I think it's fair to say, for those of you New Zealanders who are listening in, it was extremely uplifting for those of us who've been around for so long and here were women coming to the fore. And as did the international community, thank you to Mavis, thank you to Barbara Katz-Rothman, to Susan Crowther too, all sorts of people that came in and helped us. Helen Clark also I met with her and she worked behind the scenes, I'm sure, to try and help. It is interesting that in the end it was all the women's movement that actually got action here in New Zealand. It was one woman, a woman called Mary Lou Harris who was working in Radio New Zealand and she did this big interview on the radio and it just took off. So when you think all is lost, actually it isn't, women in the end are what matter. And if we're still in tune with what women want, we can actually achieve things. We're fairly hopeful that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health are listening. I actually spoke to the Prime Minister yesterday. She was in the Coro Club, which is where you meet when you're flying around the country all the time. And she indicated that she was very supportive. But I suppose it's still up to us in the end, isn't it? It is our profession and one that we should take hold of as well. And I think it's a bit hilarious. I found this Hugh Laurie, he plays that house doctor and I thought, here we are taking the advice of the doctor. It was a joke. But I do think that, you know, it is, everybody thinks that someone else is going to do something and you're not quite ready to do things. I think that's very true of midwives that they're not quite ready to stand up, they're not quite ready to do. But actually in New Zealand they all were ready and they were ready now and in unison. And I think generally speaking, I agree with Hugh Laurie now is a good time as any and you just have to keep sticking to it. And I hopefully at the next virtual day I hope we were able to report back that we've had our pay increases and that we now have the resources and are paid for what we do. Thanks so much everybody for listening. Thank you Karen. There's been a lot of supportive comments down the side. I didn't see very many questions except the one there about the Prime Minister. Did you think that having DeCindra Durn in that position will make any difference? We've actually tried to leave DeCindra Durn out of it. I think as midwives it is not okay to call the Prime Minister on her pregnancy. That's her as a woman.  So it is your choice what you do and how you do that and it's not our role as a profession overall to be trying to bully you into one way or the other. And then I did say to her, but I do hope you're getting a lot of rest. So I think we have to be careful that we don't make women politicians have, you know, don't make them feel the way a lot of people make midwives feel and that's put upon. We need to be really careful that our pregnant politicians are actually politicians and that their pregnancy shouldn't be held over them in a way that would help us. We just need to provide those politicians. Our Minister of Women is also pregnant. She's having a home birth and she stood up yesterday and said she's got a midwife who she loves and she's feeling very confident and all her family are medical people and so, you know, that's a huge change for her and good on her. But actually she's still the Minister of Women and Jacinda is still the Prime Minister and that's their number one job and hopefully the midwives that they do have are making sure that they're supporting them in that role. Are there any more questions for Karen? I see there's a question here about how would midwives wanting to get more political? It depends, Sarah, what you think political is. I think political is daily life and I think gender is daily life so for me, political is about sticking up for your gender and making sure the inequity is called out, whatever you are as a midwife and I'm not sure that we're particularly good at that. We tend to talk amongst ourselves as opposed to talking to the person that's causing the inequity and, you know, that takes practice. So I think that the College of Midwives here I think we provide forums for a lot of midwives to feel, you know, to feel strong enough to make sure that if they see inequitable behaviors if they think that they have an answer that they're able to stand up and do those things I do think New Zealand midwives are very strong and brave but even being strong and brave society is much stronger than you so I think someone here says that private is political I couldn't agree more I think that every midwife provides a different perspective when she provides fabulous middle free care she can model what shared decision making and informed consent and choices and make that mother and her family understand the role of women in society and that mothers need to be strong if society is going to stay strong. Thank you Karen. Thank you very much. I didn't catch any more questions there but certainly the comments have been very supportive and encouraging that people have been making throughout the time you've been talking and of course in New Zealand we owe a huge debt to Karen and her team and for midwives all over New Zealand who have kept the faith despite all these pressures that have been peaked upon them so thank you very much and I see that Jane thinks it was fantastic and uplifting so that's good. Thank you. Thanks for listening everybody. Thank you Karen.


Lecture 4 and 5 of this module are devoted to the writings of much admired Albert Camus. The reason we picked up Albert Camus is because his literary diaries formed a very important part of the creativity elective in IIT Bombay. That particular way of teaching creativity and creative writing within the elective framework, it depended a lot on one's own intuitive grasp of the subject, because as I said we did not really want to be in the imitative mold. So, we will be able to share some of the work that we did, although let me also at the outset point out that often we are not able to really undertake detailed textual analysis, because of copyright reasons, we are very aware of the difficulties that these impose on us and therefore, we are using material in a very conservative manner. This particular lecture is divided into three parts and all these three parts actually are devoted to this attempt to find the best way or the optimal way of generating creativity and understanding it. So, some of the ideas that we had discussed earlier, these are interwoven in the first part, which I have described as preliminary explanations of our approach. These may also be seen as somewhat pre-critical frameworks or ideas that we have placed before you again, because many of you may not have been exposed to literary analysis of the kind that the textual details require. So, we are placing some critical ideas before you again. So, we hope that you will begin to familiarize yourself with the terms that we are using. We will keep refining them and reusing them later on. The second part deals with reading commute and commute's Indian connection. That is mainly to justify why we picked up Albert Camus and not any other writer. The reasons are actually related to some of the historical links that develop between Camus's writing and that of Indian writers in various regional languages as well as in English. Part 3 deals with some of the challenges of reading the other. This notion of the other is a very complicated one, but also a very important one. So, what we thought of doing is to link it to the fact that for us also Camus is the other and he is the canonized other. So therefore, both the issues of canon formation which are also subject to critiques and they are being debated very vigorously and I think rightly so, but at the same time what does it mean to read a canonized writer from another cultural location. So, by and large this is the framework and let me explain it in greater detail now. For example, we have already discussed these ideas, so this is an interwoven sort of pattern. We had earlier talked about the changing fluid aspects of writing as a form. The fact that once you commit yourself to creative writing, it requires certain understanding of the unpredictable experiential patterns that it may come from. That is why we are very keen on this element of search which is really embedded or which also emerges from our own context, from our own consciousness. Although reading critically is also important, but the greatest danger of that position is related to reading in an imitative mode. So, how does one read and at the same time how does one listen to oneself. So, there are these elements which actually make writing very exciting because it helps you undertake a deeper journey into your own consciousness. So, we place that before you very carefully. Now, of course, constantly one is concerned about the varied student exposure to writers. That is you may have read different writers or you may have read very few writers and also you may have read them randomly without really thinking about them very carefully. The other thing that we have kept in mind is that if you want to start writing seriously, often you really do not have sufficient understanding of writing as a vocation because like every vocation it has its own demands, it has its own ways of organizing the writing process. However, unpredictable it may be. So, we have kept that in mind in sort of simplifying the discussion and clarifying it also without actually losing a sense of complexity. It has been a hard task for us, but that is an attempt to communicate with you in terms of the variety of backgrounds, educational reading backgrounds you come from and to then find a common ground that creates resonances and is also useful for you. The other idea that we had talked about and I think we had sort of almost belabored this point is related to the fact that creativity and writing, these are contested terms. We had pointed out that teaching of creative writing that is sort of a term which needs to be placed within the academic setup and immediately this really tends to evoke this kind of tussle between freelance writers and writing within the institutions. Writing does require great deal of autonomy. It requires of course, volition, but it also requires tremendous amount of internal space to really create. Institutions often tend to impose their value system on the writer. So, whether you can survive within a pre-given value system in order to create autonomous independent work that is something that I suppose writers have to deal with if they are within the institutional location. Now, for you and me who are already part of an institutional location, these questions still need to be addressed. These questions still actually remain very vital in order to keep us very alert to certain kind of complicity that may develop between our thought processes and the institutions that may impose value systems that we want to alter. So in other words, it is this contestation that perhaps we want you to keep in mind at whatever level you can understand it, again to find more productive, more creative, more fruitful directions for yourself. So finally, within this thought process, this constant striving for meaningful content ought to really define our direction. So, this is the sort of interwoven pattern that I was talking about. The other idea from the last lecture that we can pick up for a fruitful way of also placing Camus in a sort of productive framework is related to the fact that even the institutionalized creative writing programs elsewhere in the world, they do devote their attention to the process of writing. For us, we need to enlarge that sense of the process by not only talking about the aesthetic process per say, but also creativity in terms of issues within our society, within our own institutional framework or at whatever level we want to really place this inquiry, we need to pay attention to what we consider is creative for ourselves. We will again use some of the useful ideas from pre-given sources or sources that have already shown enough potential for further discussion, but we will bring it back to independent way of formulating our own work. One thing I again wanted to emphasize is related, it is related to the writing workshops. Many of the creative writing classes, they function more like writing workshops. Although I must say that I prefer a blend of the traditional lecture mold or seminar mold and then the writing workshop mold because as I said we have an enlarged framework within which we wish to operate, but the writing workshop as a metaphor as we have noted is really very useful model because it allows for divergent thinking. And I think those of you who are on the other side right now listening to me, I hope you would have a situation where a lot of you get together and you decide on certain issues and also try and listen to each other in terms of how you look at the same literary problem or same creative issue, how you can problematize it. And by sort of talking about different ways of doing it, I think this really encourages very important democratic processes, but it also helps you arrive at your own decision much in a much better manner. So, now our focus of course has been on the youthful audience that we have in mind, whether they are within institutions or outside of institutions. I think one is thinking of young people who want to start a writing career and also therefore, we have encouraged you to look at some of the models that deal with an evolving sense of the self and not really stay with a very static, narrow definition of your own self and also try and see the crisis and growth patterns in order to understand your own sensibility. So, that you understand the complexity of your own self and as Shikshant Mehai has pointed out, this complexity of the self is actually meant to help any individual understand the fuller potential that he or she is capable of. That is why we are keen on connecting to the insights offered by developmental psychology. Interestingly, developmental psychology also has borrowed a lot from many of the older more ancient, but at the same time I would say enduring philosophical insights from the Indian setup. So, in some ways if you really begin to look at it more carefully, many notions from developmental psychology, especially Maslow's notion of self actualization, many of these issues they have an overlap with philosophical traditions that you may be familiar with although not in a systematic manner, but even in terms of general statements that are made and you hear them in your surroundings and at home etc. We had also in order to look at the aesthetic aspect of writing, we had picked up some of the writers and teachers of writing and I think it is very useful to remember that you know on the one hand one is talking about the sense of the self and enlarging the scope of our discussion before launching our attempt to study one or two writers whom we have singled out because they provide very interesting insight into the way the literary process unfolds. They show the signposts of that process, they do not reveal the whole process. So, I think again a writer like Pamukh when he pointed out that writing you know is of course has a spiritual and philosophical dimension and also that it is a craft. The sense of the craft is also very important. So, we do not want to lose out on a balanced approach and therefore, both these dimensions will try and evoke as we go along. I have said here that the critical questions regarding reading writers, preparatory notebooks or autobiographical insights or analytical essays about their vocation have been chosen very, very deliberately and in that sense we have departed from traditional literary you know studies mode where the primary focus would have been on the creative writing such as essay, fiction, drama, poetry etcetera and very rarely would a traditional literary course would start with a writer on his or her own writing, but we have given importance to that because that is what we want to learn. Are there signposts or are there ways in which we can understand the writing process better through the accounts and documents that the writers themselves have provided. For example, Albert Camus wrote his literary notebooks in pencil in a notebook absolutely without any thought of publishing it. He was persuaded to publish it much, much later when his work gained the kind of you know following that you know that we know about now, but at that time he really had no clue that he would do that and of course there are different writers who maintain different kinds of notebooks or they have a different way of even showing their writing process in a creative work, but we are more interested in this separated material that is available to us in terms of what the writer has to say about how he or she looks at this very complex process and then learn from it in our own way. Now, of course so far as Albert Camus is concerned in order to understand what Albert Camus means to many writers in India, I think we need to look at some of the historical events that have unfolded around him. This is of course a brief presentation, I have elsewhere discussed this in greater detail that paper is also referred to in the reading list. So, if you are interested you can have a look at it, but basically I sort of feel that the presence of Albert Camus who wrote in French, but his translated texts, they became available in most libraries and in the European homes in the 60s in India. Now, of course I am talking about libraries that stock literary material. The startling echoes of Camus were felt with the changing scenes in post independence India, but let me explain it in a proper way. After independence the most visible writer's position was linked to the progress of writer's movement in India, I have called it the post colonial progressive writer's movement and many of the writers across many languages they felt that through literary activity by writing about different characters, by writing plays about different issues, by writing essays about unfolding nationalist concerns, they were contributing to this exhilarating task of nation building after independence and prior to that for fighting for the kind of freedom that every nation requires, but gradually that voice became much more complicated in terms of post independence situation when more and more and many problems of the nation emerged, the voices became much more critical and not simply though the voices of celebration of nation building. Camus seems to have created some kind of resonance in the second stage of our nationalist writing process. I remember reading this particular statement that Adil Jaisawala made when he published what was called new writing in India then and it really seemed way way new at that time because this really provided a much needed pan Indian perspective in terms of Indian writing from various regions that was translated into English, much of it had this kind of progressive zest and at the same time a sense of critical distancing that I was just describing to you a minute ago. He pointed out in that editorial that it is no accident that the most potent foreign influences on Indian writing today are Camus, Dostoevsky, Kafka and Sartre. Now Camus and Sartre they of course belong to what is described as the existentialist movement in France. Of course Camus did not like that label, Dostoevsky was a very important, very intriguing Russian writer, we will refer to some of his work later on, a very very powerful voice and wrote many sort of novels that dipped into ideas and how they shape human consciousness, sometimes how they consume human beings completely. Kafka again is extremely important and so he is club these together. I do just want to add one more name, I think around this time although Jaisavala has not really looked into this connection, but I think Simone de Beauvoir the French existentialist who worked with Sartre. Her work also began to create a fairly major impact on the feminist consciousness in India and if you want to see these connections maybe you can pick up a women writing in India and some of the editorial comments there will help you understand this influence. So the point is that in the process of our own search we have been shaped by ideas that have come from different parts of the world and that is the way the dialogue ought to be, but Jaisavala's observation I have singled out primarily because the rest of that essay and the choice of material in new writing in India, it shows certain amount of tension between what is very often perceived by Indian critics and thinkers as a contradictory pull between social commitment and existential despair. The term existential despair gets linked to what philosophers like Camus, Sartre etc. were talking about, I will explain it in a minute, but I am just trying to mainly again suggest that Camus's presence in India is really fairly I think palpable phenomenon. Between Franz Kafka and Albert Camus why have we chosen Camus? Now this is of course a personal choice although these are really very important writers, but let me just go over some of the contrasts between them and perhaps that will help you understand why we have chosen Camus over Kafka not because of any literary judgment that we are making, but because of personal choices that do colour these exercises because if we were to choose Kafka we also had access to his notebooks, but we have not done that. Kafka as you know is of course one of the most influential writers of 20th century. Camus of course is also equally important because of what he said and also the diversity of activities with which he was engaged. So he sort of provided a sense of a very complete literary personality and in that sense I think to the progressive writers and writers in India who were engaged in this task of nation building this feeling that a writer is also a public intellectual, a public figure, a writer is also you know a person who is accountable in terms of what, how he wants to present a problem not in this way a politician etcetera is, but in terms of certain space within the community or within the language group in which the writer operates. I think that was still there and therefore the appeal of Camus was really very great and also you know there is a kind of startling surprise that is writing brought to our consciousness. So I think it is this sense of reticence of Kafka that I felt you know I actually did not really take a very critical stand as I said I was more attracted by Camus and also the fact therefore that it would sort of help us deal with many different positions that we want to take about our own writing whether we want to have to place it within the framework of social commitment or within the framework of a sort of critiquing, estranging ourselves from a social framework in order to first understand it fully and then commit ourselves to any social action. So in that sense let me again place some of the key ideas from Albert Camus before you so that whatever I have said is substantiated. As I said we are slightly conservative in terms of quotations because of copyright convention. Now this particular statement that he made about the writer's role was made in the myth of Sisyphus which is a very very famous book of essays written by Albert Camus and he has after that he wrote the rebel. I think it is important to place those two books together because Camus did not want to stay with ideas he propounded in the myth of Sisyphus. I will talk about that a little later when I come to the next slide but here he says considered as artists we perhaps have no need to interfere in the affairs of the world but considered as men yes I cannot keep from being drawn toward everyday life toward those whoever they may be who are humiliated and debased they need to hope and if all keep silent they will be forever deprived of hope and we with them. So I am sure I need not say more because I have already talked about a certain sense of this engagement with a culture and the engagement with the marginalized the oppressed the dispossessed that Camus was very sharply aware of because he himself actually was located in that framework and you know he was born in a very low middle class family in France he was born in Algeria but he was French and also he continued to feel very deeply concerned about issues of marginality. So this again is a key statement from Albert Camus about what the writer can do in the world today that was the subtitle of this essay which I read elsewhere. The other important idea philosophical idea and we should not be afraid of the term philosophical lot of times people begin to sort of feel worried if they can understand these ideas or not we are not really taking a full fleshed course in philosophy and philosophical discourse but at the same time even in terms of writing processes when you think about their you know mechanism and their rationale we are actually philosophizing. So you need not worry about terms please get friendly with the terms. So Camus philosophical notion is expressed in the notion of absurdity. Now this is again a technical term and therefore it is you should place it within his existentialist philosophy although as I said he did not like that term but often Sartre, Simon de Beauvoir and Albert Camus they are clubbed together in terms of a common term the existentialist philosophy. I am not going into that but I am just extrapolating one particular statement about absurdity and of course later on he had many more explanations to provide to clarify this notion of absurdity and what he meant by it. We will come to that also in the next lecture but this is the state of mind of this state of mind of absurdity that startlingly sort of started a kind of chain reaction in the Indian consciousness also. He says a world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a very important and familiar world but on the other hand in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights man feels an alien a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life the actor and his setting is properly the feeling of absurdity. Now this therefore is the second you know key statement and as I pointed out to you that in the Indian location already there was this strong progressive commitment to social issues of marginality of justice, freedom etcetera and on the other hand there is this other sort of dominant way of looking at a world where pre given meaning does not make sense to the individual. So, there is a kind of a rupture that is a kind of a you know sharp change in one's experiential orientation. So, this led to a lot of debates you know in terms of Indian writers and in fact I remember Ramvila Sharma whose book on new poetry and existentialism in Hindi it is translated as Dahi Kabita or Astitwavad existentialism is Astitwavad and new poetry is of course Nahi Kabita. He referred to Mukti Bodh the very very important Hindi poet a very important voice in terms of experimental poetry in you know modern Hindi writing and he actually basically finally conceded despite his misgivings about existentialism and the impact of the notion of absurdity and related writing he had polarized it in terms of progressive you know writing on the one hand or progressive thought process on the one hand and on the other hand this writing of existential despair is a sharp polarization between the two groups and it continues to exist but in terms of Mukti Bodh finally he pointed out that poets like Mukti Bodh combined their social commitment with existential despair and so he conceded that you know this blend also it gives a different nuance, a different you know intensity to the notion of social commitment you know which is born out of the fact that pre-given value systems do not justify the world and at the same time there is need to give meaning to one's activities and to one's value systems in a manner that you really bring justice to most people. So in that sense this is really really very close to Camus own evolution but it had its own locus in terms of the internal changes that were unfolding in India. I thought I would just read excerpt from one of Mukti Bodh poems which tries to capture this void that he really talks about time and again in his writing. There is a right of you know diary that Mukti Bodh wrote, Ek Sahitik ki diary but again I did not find it very useful unfortunately and therefore I decided not to share it with you but you know if you get interested in Mukti Bodh is much that you can also discover there. This particular poem is titled Zero and it is a vivid example of the sense of void that could not be glossed over by the sensitive writers. So this is how he described it describes it in these words. These are excerpts, you have to read the full poem may be in the original to really get the full flavor. Such is the space totally black, barbers, naked, dispossessed, small, self-immersed. I excite it with word and deed. So that is Mukti Bodh's sense of what this void, this sense of absurdity, this sense of lack of connect with meaning system that is provided. Now so this is to suggest that when we picked up Albert Commune, there was already a kind of ethos within which we were functioning but at the same time this is not to suggest that the students had the same connect because I belong to another generation and the students belong to yet very different generation. So this is really it still requires picking up a text like Albert Commune's even diaries or fiction or essays, it requires reorientation and also one cannot quite predict how the students would take to this writing at all. So I again felt that it is necessary to place some of the challenges of reading a writer like Commune who we can describe as the other. In fact as I said he is the canonized other. So how do we deal with this sense of otherness of Commune and at the same time as I said we do not want to be imitative but we are in the discovery mode. We read these writers in the mode of discovering something important about the craft and also about the philosophy of writing. Now in terms of otherness one can say that the word itself I like you to play around with the notion of the other. Otherness perhaps is can be posited against an entity in contrast to which one is constructing an identity. So the reader as the cell, the writer as the other that is one simple kind of relationship but there are many issues that we need to really contend with. This otherness in some ways therefore when it is beneficial and it is working very well as in the case of let us say I the reader and Commune the writer, Pamuk the reader and Commune the writer then that otherness is a kind of a mirror that sort of shows us something about ourselves. Let us see what Pamuk has to say about Commune is fascinating I mean I really feel very very connected to this statement. He says this is from another essay I think other colors in the book of essays. He says when we are attached to a writer it is not just because he ushered us into a world that continues to haunt us but because he has in some measure made us who we are. Commune like Dostoevsky, like Borges is for me this kind of elemental writer. Such a writer's prose ushers one into a landscape waiting to be filled with meaning suggesting nonetheless that any literature with metaphysical designs has like life limitless possibilities. I mean very very eloquently expressed but that is the kind of connection sometimes writers are able to make in the consciousness of the reader. I am not suggesting that the same writers will work for you but I was fascinated by Pamuk's comment because it really in some ways is very close to my own personal experience and also my reasons for choosing Commune for you know a creative writing program. Now, the approach that we have developed and I think this will be substantiated in the next lecture is related to interconnected reading that is if even though we have chosen a particular writer it is really not possible to look at all his writing at one go it is just impossible you know within a semester we are talking about a semester long course. So now what we did is to place the literary notebooks, the essays along with the book fictional or other creative work of the writers. But some of the critical questions about otherness that really we could not ignore are related to the fact that this reading and interpretation of canonized writers from another historical period location language culture poses a constant challenge in the reading process because also remember that this is the translation from original French into English. So, there are lots of debates about different translations also and we are translating it culturally. So, what we have still tried to sort of suggest is that despite these difficulties and complex complexities which we can integrate in our discussion there still is some important common ground. They provide in terms of the insights that are provided about the complex interweaving of the writer's life and his or her act of imagination. So, how is this texture how does it unfold, how does it develop that is what we really want to understand you know since all of you want to be writers and so we want to understand this kind of complex interweaving. So, here is our life here is our experience and you know in what way does the imagination take a leap and therefore in that sense Camus again provides these signposts there is no clear formula and therefore I want to emphasize that these are not prescriptive texts, but they are prescribed reading material. So, I want to make that distinction. The other issue which is again critically very important is the fact that when we deal with a canonized writer then we have to recognize that and Camus is a canonized writer he is a Nobel prize winner and he is almost a very big cultural institution now, but canon formation is also a value laden activity. So, what you consider important and what you do not consider important all those battles of value and judgments are fought within canon formation and therefore canonized writers are also reread time and again from different vantage points. I think it is sort of useful to emphasize the historical approach that is apart from the canonization I think the fact that the writer is placed within another historical location and you the reader is placed in an entirely different historical location that would bring some very very fruitful positions in deciphering the writing. So, you may be aware of the canonical status of a writer, but finally what you feel from the vantage point of your own historical location is very very important. So, the reader may discover aspects of the work that the writer may have evoked or repressed unintentionally. Now, that is a whole area of concern and I want to mention that Edward Said after writing Orientalism in which he pointed out how western way of constructing the Orient is a hegemonic activity and therefore it is full of stereotyping that needs to be critiqued. After that he wrote this other very important study titled Culture and Imperialism in which he sort of emphasized that despite the egalitarian outlook of Albert Commune despite his socialist commitment, despite his political role in the French underground and his highly you know significant philosophical discussion of absurdity, meaning of life etc. His great fiction and despite all this the fact is that there is complexity that we need to see independent of Commune's own self view and this is what he I think has to say. I think primarily because he feels that Commune needs to be re-read from the Algerian perspective. Remember Commune was born in Algeria although he was French he was born in Algeria to a lower middle class family and but you know according to Edward Said somewhere even his hegemonic tendencies those are hegemonic tendencies of imperialist framework of France it sort of has not left Commune untouched. And from that point of view he says that this reading re-reading of Albert Commune from the Algerian point of view may unblock and release aspects hidden, taken for granted or denied by Commune. That really is a very weighty very important statement and therefore when we deal with canonized writers let us be aware of some of these difficulties because we are not thinking only of our own reading we are also looking at the reading of others in order to really strengthen our critical acumen. So then finally you know we recognize that writing and reading both require writing is of course they require independence. Writing is an act of independent creation with its own textual internal coherence. So each work has that textual internal coherence but it needs to be opened up for discussion. And therefore very often literary work becomes a cultural site for contending views but instead of looking at it as a negative process we should see it as a process that adds deeper layers to our conversations about the world and how it is constituted. So I think finally I would say that Pamuk's emphasis on the naive and the sentimental is worth thinking about and each aspiring writer has many ways of learning and unlearning. I think unlearning is also equally important maybe patterns that one has learned earlier which need to be discarded that is part of the creative process, editing out what is not working. So learning about writing processes is a form of knowledge and that is what we wish to develop through our detailed discussion of Albert Camus literary diaries and some of his writing and later on Atwood's essay in the next two lectures. So then that is what is awaiting you and this is our reading list we have already mentioned much of it and therefore I will just rush through it. Thank you.


Second Chronicles is a story told from the perspective of returned Israelites after the Babylonian exile, about why Yahweh, their God, judged the nation and cast them out of the Promised Land. Beginning with Solomon and ending with Hosea, the deeds and misdeeds of the kings and the people are portrayed as invoking the blessing or wrath of Yahweh. A basic cause and effect morality is at work in this book, and kings are judged entirely on their obedience to the law in terms of the support of the temple and its priesthood.