Session with Dr.Jay Mehta

We have often guest lectures  in our English Department MKBU. In this our Head of Department invite  various Professors  from  other universities. Same tradition From 18th to 22september we have Dr. Jay Mehta Sir’s lecture on Edger Allen Poe’s short stories. But, Dr. Jay Mehta is not a guest, he is one of gems from our English Department MKBU. He is like a family member of our Department. Right now He is Lecturer  at  R.C.. Technical College Ahmedabad.


Here, I wanna show my experience of learning under him. Basically his subject was Edger Allen’s Short story, which is totally different from Poetic. But, he teach us Poe with use of various examples of poems. His style of beginning of class is an amazing, it catches the attention of everyone in class. In this four days, He has talked about Poe’s  short stories like…


1) The Tell Tale Heart
2) The Black Cat
3) The Fall of the House of Usher
4) The Cask of Amontillado
5) The Purloined Letter
6) The Gold Bug

And Last Session on Poems and Poets of Gujarati/Hindi  Literature.
Normally He starts his session with reciting poetic lines and writing a quote on board. On the very first day he wrote on board that, ‘ The theories we believe, we call them facts and the facts we disbelieve, we call them theories.’ And then he entered in talk about Father of detective stories ( Edger Allen Poe). And give  A comparative psychological  exploration of selected stories of Poe.


So, with the Poe’s horror, terror, fear, bloodshed, burying lie, macabre and various psychological abnormalities, we feel pleasure of poetry. Poe is master of ‘Tales of  mystery and imagination’. Two types of short story he writes 1.Tales of horror and terror. 2Tales of ratiocination. Poe’s use of word shows he is accurate in using vocabulary and reading of original stories through Sir’s mouth we really feel Poe’s sharpness against sense.
‘Man Fear to death as children fears darkness’


Element of Fear is in center of all the stories. Psychological analysis with Freud’s theories like over consciousness, OCD- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, PS- Paranoid Schizophrenia, sadism and machoism, Neurosis, Psychosis, Freudian slip means…’It’s never slip of tongue  it’s slip of mind, and many other things like weakness and grey area of human mind and cultural Consciousness etc., Point of Gothic literature and element of it in Poe’s writing is also well described by Sir. This universal significance in Stories of Poe shows the permanence value because before Freud or development of psychology Poe wrote all this thing metaphorically in his writing.


After learning Poe’s six stories from Sir, we can characterize Poe as...

-Writer of Diction language
-Autobiographical elements in his writing

- Great creator of suspense in writing

- Inner conflict in characterization

- Balance in head and heart

- He brings the poetic in short stories

- Death and darkness of human mind is major theme 

- Tone of melancholy and sadness

- Singularity of effect

-.A skillful artist

Along with Poe and his selected Short stories, our last lecture on Poets and poem at the last day. And it’s really an unforgettable lecture. In this Session we talked about various poets and we presented our own creating writing also. I presented my Gujarati poem ‘યાતના’ and got વાહવાહ in sir’s comment. I feel Sir’s personal experiences of life would bitter or not like a Climbing of stairways but like a mountain. But as Sir said in his class that…

” If you born for write..

Where are your tear?”

Thus, I found Jay sir is also an a wonderful Writer…his two poem ‘હુ જાતે જાદુગર’, ‘અંતરનો  Hamlet’  both are fabulous. And his memory power is surprising He recite a many lines of Gujarati, Hindi and English poems. He introduce several poet in front of us for reading poems like…Ramesh Parekh, Anil Chavda, Khalil Dhantejvi, Suresh Joshi, Saumay Joshi, Dushyant Kumar,Miskkn, Irshad, Galib, Gulzar, Harivanshray Bachhan, Rahet Indori, Amrut Ghayal, Esha Dadawala, Gani Dahiwala  and many others. In addition he gave information about various application and website useful for reading literature in various languages.

Websites for Gujarati songs and poems

1.Tahuko

2.Rankar 

3.Laystaro

4.Jalso Application

Other Facebook page like…

-Shabdmehfil

-Shodhganga

At last I want to end this with one line spoken by Jay Sir… ‘Every Good things going to end.’ But ultimate truth is we met and apart For meet another time… as spring meet to leaf.!

Sir is big fan of Gulzar and i want to end my blog with Gulzar's poem...

दिन कुछ ऐसे गुज़ारता है कोई 
जैसे एहसान उतारता है कोई 

आईना देख के तसल्ली हुई 
हम को इस घर में जानता है कोई 

पक गया है शज़र पे फल शायद 
फिर से पत्थर उछालता है कोई 

फिर नज़र में लहू के छींटे हैं 
तुम को शायद मुग़ालता है कोई 

देर से गूँजतें हैं सन्नाटे 
जैसे हम को पुकारता है कोई  ।