Page:Relocating Bakhtin.pdf/15

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PREFACE
11

meaning accrued therefrom cannot be identical. The gap is not only between the import of Bakhtin's life-as-event and life-as-text; it is also between our positions as observers. Therefore, the readers in Indian subcontinent would also deduce their own meanings and interpret the hidden nuances in accordance with the positions they adopt. Bakhtin's constant struggle with himself and also the non appreciative world around for achieving the true dialogics of meaning kindles and rekindles our desire to be the integral part of the constant struggle for meaning. The key idea, that existence is unfinalizable and it is imperative to continue the act of being as ever-renewable addressivity, particularly fascinates us. We tend to understand not only the textual microcosms, but also the dramatics of life in the theoretical context of the architectonics of answerability. The dialogics of self and other promises to be all-pervasive. In the historically determined pluralistic canvas of Indian subcontinent, Bakhtinian concepts of polyphony and heteroglossia as well as the unfading importance of faith in simultaneity of existences can never remain confined to the territories of literature. Rather these concepts promise to be illustrative of multifoliated Indian existence. Besides there is the concept of carnival whose multiple resonances in the socio-cultural milieu on the one hand and the subversive literatures on the other can never be denied. Only the site of Bakhtin has to be revisited again and again for the sake of rediscovering his great relevance in different epochs.

In spite of discrepancies in the facts of his life and belated discovery of his unique achievements as a thinker, Bakhtin has been subjected to close scrutiny by various scholars in last two decades. But these western scholars have been frankly biased against the historical epoch which fashioned his multidimensional world-view. Therefore, some Bakhtinian concepts have been overread while some other basic ingredients of his thought process have been underplayed. One can say that it posits margins of meaning where third world readers can find enough