Aesthetic Significance of Popular Readings: From Provincial Bharat to

New India

Ananya Roy
Assistant Professor
Business Communication
Institute of Management and Information Science
Swagat Vihar, Bankual, Bhubaneswar
Odisha 752101
Email: [email protected]
 Aesthetic Significance of Popular Readings: From Provincial Bharat to
New India

Ananya Roy Pratihar

Assistant Professor
Business Communication
Institute of Management and Information Science,Bhubaneswar

Abstract

The distinction made between ‘high’ brow and ‘low’ brow literature has always placed
the genre of popular fiction under the scanner of critical reception and often defined as
something less literary or ‘Literature’s opposite’ (Ken Gelder). In India, termed as ‘techie lit’,
‘chick lit, lad lit or Metro Reads this genre is flourishing more in the hands of young Indian
writers. These young authors deal with contemporary society, discuss the enhancement of
entrepreneurship, easy urban relationships and consumerism using a distinctively Indian
flavour. Though, the popularity of ventures in India such as the Jaipur and Bangalore
literature festivals, and hunger for ‘popular’ literature by a readership with enhanced
disposable income suggest that home-grown talent is increasingly well celebrated and
appreciated at home, the literary merit of Indian popular fiction remains ambivalent.
However, this genre has travelled a long way from provincial Bharat to ‘New’ India and the
conclusions drawn about its imitation of Western forms does not suffice to mark its aesthetic
significance. Drawing on theories of aesthetic, popular culture, life writing and creativity, this
paper tries to analyse three novels English, August (1988) by Upamanyu Chatterjee, Scenes
from an Executive Life by Anurag Mathur (2000) and 2 States: The Story of My Marriage
(2009) by Chetan Bhagat in order to understand the distinctive creative expression present in
Indian popular fiction and to enquire the genre’s aesthetic possibilities which may be found in
some of its global transformations.

Keywords: popular fiction, high and low culture, popular culture, formulaic fiction,

globalisation
 Popular Fiction belongs to the category of the vibrant literature that arrests readers’

attention who not only focus on writer’s works but move forward by yearning for more

stories that will fulfil their appetite for personal fantasies and bold new energies that can

exercise their spirits. Again, at the publishing front, a literature appears mature when it is not

just one or two big presses that control what is published, distributed and consumed, but

when a good numbers of publishing houses compete to gain attention of readers. In recent

times these publishing giants continuously entice a large pool of talented writers to be

available to make good books bettered with perfect editing, production, glossy and alluring

designs and smart publicity. If all these propositions are taken into account, Indian Popular

English Fiction has certainly become much bigger, richer, and positioned itself to a brighter

place in the last twenty years, which is truly being a part of the globalized world.

In recent times, India has a reputable position especially in the genre of ‘popular’

fiction – or what Ken Gelder phrases as ‘literature’s’ opposite (11). This section of popular

narratives are mostly about English speaking – young Indian living in the sprawling

metropolises like Mumbai or Bangalore, in India’s premier Institutions, call centre or offices.

Characters in the narratives are mostly like them – young, energetic and always wrestle with

the crisis born out of the ‘clash’ of tradition and modernity, old value system and new

avenues.

My interest particularly lies with popular writers whose concern are related to India in

its immediacy, popularity in the market and who of late have come under academic

surveillance. For this article I have selected three best selling popular Indian narratives: one is

very recent- 2 States: The Story of My Marriage by Chetan Bhagat (2009), next is Anurag

Mathur’s Inscrutable Americans (1999) and the third one dates back to 1988 – English,

August by Upamanyu Chatterjee. Where Upamanyu Chatterjee’s novel English, August

focuses on the escapist nature of youth and a bizarre notion of aesthetic shaped by the young
mind, Anurag Mathur’s narrative centres around young man’s fight for existence in a foreign

land. However, Chetan Bhagat’s novel 2 States: The Story of My Marriage shows ways

differently to the ‘young India’ to elevate their value system both at personal and the societal

levels. This paper thus, makes an attempt to compare and identify how this genre, beginning

from the late 1980s to 2000s, constantly reflects on the contemporary middle class issues and

conflicts as well as provide adequate space for the young India to express their sentiments,

system of belief and their aesthetic sense which is completely different from the earlier

popular Indian writings in English.

The Indian realities shown in these narratives are determinate and precisely defined and

way different from the novels written earlier. The writers, in a way, like the European

modernists, are, on the deeper level, involved in the epistemological process to know,

understand and communicate the Indian world of realities in the postcolonial period. In their

aesthetic representation they are highly innovative and apply the postmodernist mode of

expression by subverting the bygone fictional modes of portrayal in the classical- humanistic

realistic novel, but in a sophisticated manner.

It is an indisputable fact that Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) paved a

new platform for Indian fiction in English. His narratives signalled towards an increased

linguistic diversity in Indian writing in English. Before Rushdie these narratives mostly

focussed on ‘Indianness’ through varied cultures and peoples, but in a very ‘unindian’

language and style. However, with Rushdie the scenario changed. As Paranjape remarks:

Of late, the realistic, modernistic and pessimistic mode of first three decades of post

independence writing is giving way to a non-representational, experimental, self

conscious and optimistic literature. But the real change the writers of today face is the

enforced homogenisation and standardisation and the new, easy and superficial
 internationalism which tends Indian English writers to market themselves abroad.

(The Economic Polity).

Gradually after 1980s Indian fiction in English witnessed a new generation of writers who,

equipped with a new idiom, strove to assert them and strained to express in their writings

their observations summative of human situation in the Indian subcontinent. They liberalised

the Indian fiction in English from the complexes which had captivated the early writers and

changed its tone, tenor and content. One among these new voices is Upamanyu Chatterjee.

And it would be apt enough to remark that he is one of the writers who started to tell common

things to the readers with a different way, full of humour, sarcasm but real.

Upamanyu Chatterjee through his story brings about the post-colonial bureaucracy,

development, politics and characters in the drama of an Indian institution. The novel English,

August: An Indian Story (1988) witnessed an inst antaneous success and even became a major

film released through Twentieth Century Fox, India. The title is interestingly striking for its

contrasting expression – a colonial obsession with the Raj coupled with the Indian reality. It

is an account of a westernised young Indian's encounter with provincial Bharat. The novel, at

the surface level, is a sarcastic remark on the Indian Administrative Service with its baggage

of "interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill will and selfishness" (English, August

121). Otherwise, it is a fascinating metaphor of self-discovery of a confused young Indian.

He torments between an antiquated sensibility and his contemporary ethos. The narrative

details the protagonist’s constant endeavour to come to terms with the reality around him. It

is a frank discussion of the predicament in which an intelligent and educated modem youth

finds him. There is a hovering sense of dislocation from all traditions and conventions which

he finds meaningless. The novel describes a journey, sometimes pathetic, sometimes

humorous, and even ridiculous journey from rootless-ness to attempted but failed maturity, a
struggle to come to terms with oneself. The novel, thus, gives a feeble impression of success

in the attempt at maturity by experience.

The voice of the author in this novel has been so authentic, natural, spontaneous,

compulsive and full of confidence that the Indian intelligentsia who had been watching the

socio-political realities of post-colonial India with a sense of indeterminacy of things and

ambivalence of attitudes, frustration and unease found his true aesthetic articulation in his

works.

Chatterjee’s protagonist, Agastya Sen, or the westernised August, and again the Bengali

Ogu is an IAS officer posted at Madna, a back water town in central India for a year's

training. He thinks and speaks the language of a westernized India. He finds himself lonely,

bored, sex- starved and disgusted with his colleagues at workplaces and their ridiculous

better- halves in social gatherings. On the whole he receives a cultural shock. However, to

digest the shock he indulges in marijuana, masturbating frequently in the privacy of his room

– his escape zone with its one bed, desk, and almirah. Throughout his days of training, he

meets a bunch of farcical and pretentious characters. He reads Marcus Aurelis voraciously

and maintains a steady correspondence with his father who criticises his son for reading the

Bengali book Pather Panchali in English and not in Bengali, which happens to be his mother

tongue. The novel ends with Agastya having survived one harrowing year of training in

Madna. However, he could stand this phase as he was assisted by his innate sense of good

humour and looking forward to the reunion with his father.

Obviously, Agastya is no aggressive hero with either muscle power or ambition. His

character is reflected in a school composition, where he wrote that "his ambition was to be a

domesticated male stray dog because they lived the best life". The reasons are not far to seek.

Such a creature was assured food, needed no commitment, and above all enjoyed a lot of

freedom to sleep, bark and, more importantly "got a lot of sex" (English, August 35). Agastya
creates a world of his own as an escape space for his troubled self. Drugs, liquor, sex and

fantasy become his weapons to tolerate the world outside."What'll you do for sex and

Marijuana in Madna?" (English, August 3) asks Dhrubo. But he is certain about one thing "...

August, you're going to get hazaar fucked in Madna” (English, August 1). This perhaps sets

the tone of the narrative. A conventional or stereotypical bureaucrat with clean ways and

official competence is not the role that Agastya fits into. On the other hand, in Dhrubo's

words," (Agastya) look(s) like a porn film actor, thin and kinky, the kind who wears a bra"

(English, August 3). Though he is an elite and educated youth his adolescence frolics do not

leave him. It prevents him from playing the role he is assigned to or perceiving his true

identity. The yellow journalist Mr. Sathe categorizes Agastya as “Cola Generation” “a

generation that does not oil its hair” (probably implying western hippy culture that was

dominant during that period as represented in the media and films of the time). Agastya’s

uncle who can be regarded as one of his mentors defies his generation as „you generation of

apes‟. Out of his rage he scowls: “The greatest praise you mimics long for is to be called

European junkies. And who is August? In my presence, call him Ogu.” Thus, his name itself

is a metaphor in this novel. The name implies a mythological character who is rooted to the

age old religio-cultural heritage of its nation. It is the sacred name of very much revered

Rishi, an ideal of commitment, determination and efficiency.

The novel English August: An Indian Story is deeply a psychological disclosure of

today’s urban educated youth and Agastya as its suitable representative. He is a mirror to

identify the subjectivity of present generation of postcolonial India. This is the mirror that

reflects the average Indian growing up in an Indian megapolis and feeling constantly that he

will be more at home in New York or London than in a small of India.

 Agastya's obsession with sex works as a defence mechanism to wave off his

bewildering sense of aimlessness. He is alienated and misplaced, feeling empty and lonely.

At the very beginning of the novel Chatterjee spells out his protagonist's predicament:

Anchorlessness – that was to be his chaotic concern in that uncertain Mean, battling a

sense of waste was to be another. Other fodder too, in the farrago of his mind, self-pity

in an uncongenial clime, the incertitude of his reactions to Madna, his job, and his

inability to relate to it-other abstractions too, his niche in the world, his future, the

elusive mocking nature of happiness, the possibility of its attainment. (English, August,

25)

Agastya Sen, therefore, represents his time – the last quarter of the twentieth century

Indian urban life, at multiple levels. Like, August the youth of the time is victims of their

educational cultural nurturing. Since Agastya is incapable to recognize his genuine

subjectivity to which his roots belong under the impact of colonial other, he takes retreats

from any judicious approach to his assigned tasks. He better wastes his time in “lambent

dullness” as he says to himself at an important meeting of the Collectorate with the

community: “Yes, lambent dullness, definitely.” (English, August, 14) Like Agastya, the

Indian youth’s thoughts constipated by to the socio – political responsibilities, find their

expression in the lambent dullness and abrupt fantasies.

The uniqueness of the novel is marked by its categorical emphasis on the duty- bound

civil servant who is constantly expected to perform and deliver. Chatterjee’s Agastya

becomes a misfit and goes to an extent of perceiving everything negatively about the

provincial part of India-Madna. Through the voice of Agastya, Chatterjee points at the life of

the rural areas of Madna devoid of any progress. This place is under the guidance of a non-

contributing officer who has the duty to transform the rural life in India. The novelists
purposefully indicate that the very system who led India to achieve freedom now has become

thoughtless of ways to connect with the weak and powerless rural parts of India.

It is this theme of “anchorlessness”, the weariness of an era, the loneliness of an entire

generation that the novelist explores along with the satiric depiction of the entire Indian

Administrative Service. Drugs, booze and masturbation are hyped as means of getting out of

this situation.

Upamanyu Chatterjee breaks up the narrative continuity, departs also from some of the

standard ways of representing characters and at times violet the usual syntax and coherence

of narrative language by the use of stream of consciousness and other innovative modes of

narration. English, August: An Indian Story can be placed in the postmodern metafictional

aesthetic tradition. The satirical mode and parodical intent are embedded in the textual

structure of the novel in such a way that they resist classification in terms of the traditional

literary modes of judgement. Again, in the philosophical context of their content this text is

post modernist because it tends to “subvert the foundations of our accepted modes of thought

and experience so as to reveal the meaninglessness of the existence and the underlying

‘abyss’ or ‘voids’ or ‘nothingness’ on which any supposed security is conceived to be

precariously suspended.

The dialogue in Chatterjee’s novel seems to be showy and shabby. The free flow of the

dialogues faces obstruction by the inclusion of difficult words. Everything in the book is

unreal, the stilted family ties and stilted language, and one is enforced to shut the book with a

sense of bitterness-it leaves distaste in the mouth. The book deals for the most part with

wasted aimless lives and it becomes a metaphor, of a monstrous ugliness.

The ordinary writing style of this novel could be read, as the suitable aesthetic

articulation meant for the young Indians and a deliberate strategy to expose those unwritten

truths of young Indian contemporary lives which may not be possible to create with more
‘sophisticated’ and fashionable literary styles. The resemblance between the life of the author

Upamanyu Chatterjee and the protagonist, Agastya, he creates is evident in Indian popular lit

novels when the details of the storyline of the novels are compared with the short biographies

of the authors on the back covers. The novels share a strong overlap with autobiographical

writing given their chronicling of loosely fictionalised life histories, but has escaped the

notion of imperative ‘I’. The appropriation of a literary form associated with Enlightenment

and colonial masculine selfhood has the potential to be a transformatory gesture in the

postcolonial context, but in case of Indian popular fiction, the question of how far the genre

goes in shattering the “cultural hall of mirrors” remains.

Chatterjee’s intensely furnished novel English, August presents the terrible

bewilderment, skeptical detachment and the exhaustion of an Indian youth caught in the

middle of events that are disheartening and arid. However, Anurag Mathur’s Inscrutable

American’s shows a different prospect. Published by Rupa, The Inscrutable Americans

created a record in Indian publishing history for being the most-sold Indian fiction as well as

for being the only book to feature on bestseller list for eleven years. The plot of this narrative

replicates the young generation of mid-90s. It is believed that India during this mid 90s

experiences a more solution-seeking generation that always look forward to negotiate its way

through life. It is definitely more international in approach. The fabled land of opportunities

for the Indian youth –America is explored through the eyes of the protagonist with a self

confident desi terms. The adolescent urge for losing virginity in and to America is as well

strongly parodied.

Anurag Mathur too, like Chatterjee, in his novel, The Inscrutable Americans, presents

such a protagonist who like any other young ones shares the experience of detachment that

arises out of physical and emotional alienation. They have started living away from their

native cultures and constantly trying to negotiate with the new culture and society. In his
novel, he mainly explores the problems of immigrants, away from their homelands, the

protagonist’s search for an identity and his futile attempts to grasp the new American culture.

Mathur’s whole novel is an interpretation of the postcolonial East- West cultural

clashes and crisis. Very skilfully, the author imitates the culture and identity crises of any

Indian who tries to accommodate in America. In the novel, the white Americans always think

that as they are white, they are superior to the black Indians who stick to superstitions,

traditions and primitive life. The turn of events in Mathur’s novel shrink artificial cultural

pretensions and superiority complexes, on the part of both the Americans in the host nation as

well as the ex-pats themselves who show the upper-collar to their native counterparts.

Moreover, In The Inscrutable Americans, Mathur’s serio-comic questions with sincerity and

longstanding cultural clichés and succeeds in hitting the right notes of cross-cultural critical

understanding. The novel shows the unique capacity of being a fictive stress-buster, breezing

through the reader’s sensibility like a glider and neutralising those cross-cultural differences

that unnecessarily spark discord.

Towards the end of the novel Gopal finds himself to grow from “from a Child to

man” (237). All the incidents right from the first encounter with Randy, to his trying to strike

a chord with the attitude towards sex, his frustrated love for Sue, his involvement with the

American attitude, education system and his surprise at the way in which he finds America to

be different from India – right from the way they drive to the way they live their lives, his

journey to America changes Gopal as Mathur’s novel brings a change in which Indian fiction

are written. Though the novel is set pre-9/11 America and before the global recession, the

novel reflects upon the lessons learnt from positive association with both a native Eastern

culture as well as a completely alien Western culture. Gopal becomes nostalgic about leaving

America at the expiration of his course-tenure. This seems ironic because he was initially
wistful and home-sick while departing from his homeland for higher studies abroad. By the

end of the novel, we discern that Gopal’s cultural horizons are widened and his individual

sensibility is positively sharpened, which is why he sheds much of his initial prejudiced

cultural framework.

In this text, the representation of reality is Mathur’s concern. So he has to make a

judgement as to where and in what ways it is most competently represented. The

individuality of the novel is marked by its classic narration of a young man coming of age.

The book visibly imitates the life of a native young Indian and fictionalizes his incidents.

Though it is comical, it remains thought provoking as it deals with depiction of other issues

like sexual abuse, racial discrimination and cultural notions which he handles through his

innocent encounters in America.

A closer look at another Indian popular fiction 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

(2009) by Chetan Bhagat – might provide an insight into the kinds of selves being rehearsed

in Indian popular literature. Given these novels’ adoption of a life writing form and certain

narration strategies typical of popular fiction, analysing it can also respond to the question of

popular literature’s aesthetic merit.

Like almost all popular fiction utilises a first-person narrative or point of view 2 States:

The Story of My Marriage is also presented in the autobiographical mode, as the subtitle of

the novel, ‘The Story of My Marriage,’ suggests so.

The plot revolves around Krish and Ananya, highly qualified, independent and live

according to the new way of life where as their parents are still rooted in traditions. The plot

with its cinematic beginning, spiced up by love, sex, music, tear-eyed mothers, loved

mouthed relatives, emotional breakdown of hero following a very obvious break-up-of

marriage and a predictably happy ending, makes it a perfect formulaic fiction.

 However this novel is not a fantasy tale. Such situation regularly happens in Indian

society. Almost in all household inter-caste or interstate marriages do happen and the boy and

the girl go through the same situation. And it’s very much evident, from the oft quoted blurb

of the book 2 States:

Love marriages around the world are simple: Boy loves girl. Girl loves Boy. They

get married. In India, there are a few more steps: Boy loves Girl. Girl loves Boy.

Girl’s family has to love boy. Boy’s family has to love girl. Girl’s family has to

love Boy’s family. Boy’s family has to love girl’s family. Girl and Boy still love

each other. They get married. (Blurb)

Chetan Bhagat is one of the most prolific writers of popular fiction. Million copies of

his books have been sold, making him India's best-selling novelist at the moment. The novel

in discussion 2 States: The Story of My Marriage (2009) dramatizes the anxieties that the

Indian youth faces. Bhagat’s writings reveal the fact that in almost all his fictional and non-

fictional pieces of writing, he highlights the sentiment of young generation. He has almost

changed the point of view of young generation and can be canonized as a writer of youngsters

as his sensibility along with his minute observation of modern generation, and specifically,

educated ones and thus enables him to hit the right chord.

Like Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English August, Bhagat’s present novel 2 States too, is

one of the best sellers of Chetan Bhagat, firstly, because the writer admits that this is the

imaginative reconstruction of his own life and secondly it touches the sentiments of young

generation. Both the factors make this work authentic and increase his popularity among the

readers; however, like his predecessor Chatterjee, Bhagat too maintains the control of

creativity over biographical disclosure. He himself has dedicated this novel to his in-laws and

also clarifies in the ‘Acknowledgement’ part of 2 States that it is an outcome of his personally

lived experiences: “I also want to make a couple of disclaimers. One, this story is inspired by
my own family experiences. However, this book should be seen as a work of fiction. Also,

for authenticity, I have used names of some real places, people and institutions as they

represent cultural icons of today and aid in storytelling. There is no intention to imply

anything else (2 States,vii).

The story starts in a much choreographed way. The protagonist Krish Malhotra begins

his story in a psycho-therapist’s chamber narrating to her the circumstances leading to his

emotional breakdown. Then, the plot shifts to IIM, Ahmedebad, to describe Krish’s meeting

with his beloved. Krish Malhoptra and Ananya Swaminathan are classmates at IIM (A) . A

rendezvous at the college canteen bonds them together and in a matter of weeks the duo start

reading and sleeping in each other’s hostel rooms. Love blossoms and matures in the campus

and by the time they pass out of the management institute with secured job – Krish, in Citi

Bank, Chennai and Ananya in HLL. Conflict begins when they decide to marry. Marriages

beyond caste and clan are still forbidden in India, let alone an inter-state marriage of a

Punjabi and a Tamil Brahmin.

To solve this problem Krish gets a transfer in City Bank of Chennai so that he can

remain in touch with Ananya and builds a rapport with her family though he has to suffer a

lot in new working place. The story thus keeps on shifting its location from Ahmadabad,

Delhi, Chennai with its brief stay in Goa. These snapshots of different cities of India give this

novel a move and portray different phases of the life of protagonists and maintain spell-bound

impact on the readers mind as to what will happen next. This technique of shifting location,

dislocation and relocation gives an impression that the novel is having kinetic element and

this does not let the novel have dullness in its intonation.

So, Krish starts winning her parents’ heart first by organizing a concert for Ananya’s

mother and next by helping Ananya’s father to prepare his PPT and finally arranges a dinner

party to propose everyone in Ananya’s family. Krish utters: “‘I, Krish Malhotra, would like
to propose to all of you. Will you marry me?’ I said and held the four boxes in my palm” (2

States 183). Thus, he convinces Ananya’s parents to accept him as their son-in-law.

Then Ananya too makes the effort to win the favour of Krish’s family. Though Krish’s

mother and his aunts never want him to marry a South Indian girl, Ananya in every way

possible tries to be a part of Krish’s family. Situation changes and becomes favourable for her

when she comes with Krish and attends the marriage party of Krish’s cousin Minti with

Duke. Her presence is never appreciated but when she solves the problem of dowry that

occurs from groom’s side as they demand a bigger car in marriage, everyone starts praising

her. Thus, Krish’s mother accepts her as her daughter-in-law and after a lots of dramatic

sequences; they finally succeed to bring both the families under one roof and eventually get

married in the end.

Like any Bollywood Masala movie, the novel too is a love story with twists where two

young and ambitious individuals from two different cultural construct fall in love and they

have to face various problems to marry each other not only at familial stage rather at societal

plain too. It also reveals a fact how love remains at the mercy of societal and ethical plain and

how a man has to cope up with the situation when he has to make a patch up between his

better- half and mother.

At a close textual study of this novel, it gets revealed that Chetan Bhagat makes his

book a fun reading for his fans by using the language of the young generation as well as gives

a solution to the young generation to handle the tension that occurs between tradition and

contemporary social change prompted by globalisation.

Thus, Bhagat’s 2 States is a formulaic fiction. But it is not a complete fantasy fiction

rather tries to bring out solution for the social problems. In this work particularly, he has

indicated social issues pertaining to young generation ranging from love marriage, generation

gap, dowry etc and also provides solutions to these problems. This narrative is an articulation
of this notion that, two decades after India's economy liberalized and opened up to global

investment, profound economic, social, and cultural changes are underway. The narrative

techniques, language selection, and cinematographic treatment of the subject content

successfully hold the readers.

Conclusion

To return to critics’ dismissal of popular fiction from the field of literature, it is

agreeable that popular fiction lacks literary elements such as imaginative use of language,

inventive and thought-provoking metaphors, layered meaning, complex characters, and

innovative handling of conventional structure. It is only humour that gets highlighted to the

tradition of popular fiction and humour again does not receive any literary standard whereas

satire has its own share of being noticed as an important literary element.

All the protagonist discussed in this chapter be it Upamanyu Chatterjee’s Agastya,

Mathur’s Gopal or Bhagat’s Krish or any of the youth the authors have portrayed reflect the

fact that the Indian middle class youth have come out from the boundaries of provisional

Bharat to become active participants to build a New India.

On the other hand, so far as the aesthetic significance of these popular fictions are

concerned, these popular narratives will survive and thrive. The appetite for popular fiction

whether paper or electronic looks to be as insatiable as it ever was within the new wholly

digitised regime the genre of popular fiction will prosper or will get more space in New India.

It can be concluded that a more systematic and well researched approach might

provide the definitive answer to the question of popular fiction’s aesthetic value. Indian

popular fiction, and their constant cinematic adaptations, might be an indicator of that this

genre can more fruitfully be sought.

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