ABSTRACT
American playwright, Oscar Hammerstein II in his composition “Ol’ man River” juxtaposes the old man with the Mississippi river. The song demonstrates a livid history of struggles of the African American community in the United States of America. Melody Jue, in her book Wild Blue Media: Thinking Through Seawater, states, “I see the ocean as a vital starting place to develop what I call milieu-specific-analysis, calling attention to the differences between perceptual environments and how we think within and through as embodied observers.” The song is adapted to rivers Brahmaputra and Ganga that flow in the South Asian regions by Indian composer, Bhupen Hazarika. Addressing the water unbolts a discourse of world in continuity instead of a disjoint world of borders, races, and communities. They inscribe a dialectically complex question of human beings and their oppression. In the United States of America, the song echoes the slave history in relation to the African American community. In the context of India, the lyrics can be read from the historical denial and oppression of the Dalit community. In this regard, we find continuous relationships between the continents through the source that is water, and the emanating violence. Jue in her book attempts to show how the ocean is just the beginning of developing a broader sensitivity to the role of milieu in the fields of literacy studies. Within this framework, this chapter lends a milieu-specific analysis of these songs and draws the trajectory within which they are expressed.
