The Stepmother and other stories

Education for women, their freedom to choose, like any other freedom, came after a long and hard struggle. And still, it remains elusive to many.

The eight stories in Laxmibai Abhayankar's The Stepmother and other stories, first published during 1900-14 in popular Marathi magazines, offer a vivid portrait of life in this period in the Bombay presidency and Deccan states and of social reforms that worked as an antidote to rigid orthodox practices that enslaved women. 

This was a time when child marriages were rife, when a girl aged 14 was expected to mother at least two kids, and if still unmarried, deemed fit to be a second wife/stepmother, when widows lived through hell on Earth to ensure their dead husband's easy passage to heaven. By delving into marriages, relationship of a woman with her husband, parents and parents-in-law, the author shows a society in throes of change, torn between vices and virtues, torn between vehemently sticking to traditions and slowly embracing literacy & logic.  

Demure daughters-in-law slogging away at home from dawn to dusk, cunning mothers-in-law lashing their whip like tongues, sons in rich households squandering away wealth, poor & educated young men upholding morals, educated women doing the tightrope walk between tradition & modernity, following and flouting conventions populate these stories. But before you hastily conclude that the collection is a ubiquitous Grand Indian Family Drama, the author's sincerity, in showing how changes though infinitesimally small have compounded over time to make the world we know today, wins our hearts. She points out that though people from upper echelons had the privilege to effect a change in the society, they had too many obstacles to overcome in their own households while aspiring for political freedom with social equality.

In a translation that offers a delectable reading experience and retains local flavor with a sprinkle of Marathi terms, this collection is a slice of our history, one we would have missed out on if not for the publisher's endeavors. The author, a prolific writer and staunch Nav-matvadi (new thinker), born in 1884 in Sangli was nominated the first woman member of Sangli municipality. She was the first woman official visitor to Sangli central jail and Sangli state's sole representative to 1927 All India women's conference at Pune. Born into a family of social reformers, the granddaughter of Lokhitvadi Gopal Hari Deshmukh, married to a lawyer who pioneered Sansthani Praja Parsihad movement, she fought fiercely for the rights of women, their education and emancipation. Reading stories penned by her, in translation rendered by her granddaughter, feels really special. 

The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan's debut novel, first published in 1989, The Joy Luck Club, a widely read and appreciated classic, needs no introduction. Still for the sake of completion, here is a line on what the book is about - four Chinese women (Ms.Woo, Ms.Hsu, Ms. Jong and Ms. St.Clair) who immigrate to the USA post WWII in search of hope, a better tomorrow leaving behind tragedies that scarred their lives in their homeland, China. It's about their daughters, born in the USA, who turn out to be more American than Chinese. 

Extensively on mother-daughter relationships fraught with tension and misunderstanding even when built on love and trust, on how one's past is inextricably linked to the present and future too, on the conundrum associated with hyphenated cultures, The Joy Luck Club can boast of -

1) clear structure 2) lucid writing 3) memorable characters (some, if not all).

Four sections, each with four chapters, the book's structure is inspired from the game mahjong played by the four mothers who form The Joy Luck Club in San Francisco. Two sections (the first and last one), from the POV of the mothers (except Suyuan Woo who is dead right at the start of the book and we know her from the POV of her daughter and other characters) focus on their lives - their past in China, life in America unto present day. The other two sections are from the POV of the daughters - their growing up years in America and life crises in their 30s. Every section begins with a parable that beautifully represents the essence of its contents. Though the book feels like a collection of disjoint 16 life vignettes/stories, how some stories here interlock is pretty interesting. As a novel comprising of loosely connected stories, I felt this book allows the reader the liberty to slowly soak it up even when hard pressed for contiguous reading time that a novel usually demands.  

The writing is simple, evocative and straightforward. For instance, the author describes Kweilin in China with the line below - "The peaks looked like giant fried fish heads trying to jump out of a vat of oil." and this description perfectly matches with the Google images of Kweilin. 

There are lines, paragraphs that I loved and jotted down in my diary but the below are really special - 

(POV of Waverly Jong, Lindo Jong's daughter)

"The three of us, leaving our differences behind, stepping on the plane together, sitting side by side, lifting off, moving West to reach the East.

Tin Jong, in America, asking Lindo if she will marry him in broken English - "Lindo, can you spouse me?" 

In providing a rich insight into Chinese culture - their festivals, beliefs, superstitions and traditions, this book scores extremely well. There is a little history in the background with details of the Japanese invasion of China during WWII. 

Of the four mother-daughter pairs, Suyuan Woo, her daughter Jing Mei Woo, Lindo Jong and her daughter Waverly Jong are my favourites. 

Despite the above positives, The Joy Luck Club fell flat in sections from the POV of the daughters as failed marriages and divorce was a recurrent subject here. Also, while the ordeals of the mother, what shaped their attitude, hopes and aspirations was pretty clear, the portraiture of the daughters remained fuzzy. Few situations felt logically improbable too. 

"American circumstances and Chinese character, how could I know these two things do not mix?"-  even as the first gen immigrants want more opportunities, freedom, everything they lacked for their children, their insecurity as they drift away from their culture is an oft-discussed subject in fiction that it has begun to feel as insipid as is real. Jhumpa Lahiri, Kimi Cunningham Grant and Julie Otsuka (to name a few) are authors who have reflected a lot on this subject. 

But even as I write this, I wish there is an Indian equivalent of The Joy Luck Club featuring four 

Indian women catching up on a game of Ludo, laughing and chatting over food and drink, their stories and that of their American-born daughters.

The Joy Luck Club wasn't a 5* read for me, but I enjoyed it despite its shortcomings; quite like how the mothers and daughters in this book accept each other, fully aware of their weaknesses.

Will I read more by Amy Tan? Yes, I will, for she writes in the preface to this book - "storytelling was my mother's purgative for her misery". I am sure she has several stories passed down to her by her mother to share with us readers. 

The Dalit Brahmin and other stories

 

The Dalit Brahmin and other stories (a collection of 28 stories) by Sharankumar Limbale, translated from Marathi by Priya Adarkar, grabbed my attention due to the introduction penned by Anand Teltumbde (no disrespect meant for the author & translator). This introduction is an extremely vital part of the book, a primer on the birth and evolution of Dalit writings, the author and his works and a guide on how to go about the stories (grouped into 6 categories). Also, every story is keenly analysed/reviewed here before ending in questions that provoke thought. 

Dwelling on Dalit experience in post independent India, Limbale's stories open up a brutal world that's driven and conditioned by caste system. One story after the other, in vitriolic writing, the author lays bare how exploitation, humiliation, oppression, pain and shame are deeply embedded in a Dalit's daily life. From feudal villages to cities, slum dwellers to middle class Dalits, servility to violent revolt as response the stories cover a broad spectrum, easily unattainable in a similar sized novel.

Even as one suspects 28 stories on one subject might allow repetition, fiery lines and little twists at the end make each story different & impressive 

Another reason that made me want to read this is the oxymoron term in the title - The Dalit Brahmin, used for the urban educated Dalit middle class who look down upon their own folk and cosy up to Brahmins and want to emulate their lives. Plagued by an inferiority complex, they want to distance themselves from everything that once pulled them down. That a few stories here focus on this mentality makes it different from most works that largely focus on the hegemony by Brahmins and zamindars. 

How the author portrays women didn't sit well with me - if they are upper caste, they are selfish, insensitive harbingers of doom for a Dalit man, his family, his whole village; if lower caste, they are mere objects of sex. 

Translation can never fully shoulder the cultural baggage but in Priya Adarkar's words, the power with which the author smacks us with truth stays unadulterated. 

A brilliant and powerful collection of stories! 

Taatung Tatung

 

Taatung Tatung and Other Amazing Stories of India's Diverse Languages by Vaishali Shroff works like a porthole offering a view of the vast sea of languages from across the length and breadth of India. A slim work of nonfiction, it's rendered as a set of stories; stories of how languages and scripts were born, how they grew/changed/evolved over time, how some managed to thrive while others disappeared. Here, we have stories of languages that stay undeciphered, and even hidden from us till day. The linguistic journey is made wholesome and wonderful by treating languages like living entities.

From the time of Indus valley civilization, pre Neolithic era, Bhimbetka cave shelters to contemporary language movements that strove to get a certain language its due recognition, these stories are well organized, easy to read and assimilate and immensely insightful.

The book is not only an ode to languages but also to language activists and conservationists, reformers and epigraphists - James Prinsep, Potti Sriramulu, Meher Marfatia, Sooni Taraporewala, Elder Boa Sr, Mohammad Abul Kashem, Anvita Abbi, Palash Kumar Nath, Ganesh Devy, Shubhranshu Choudhary, Anand Singh Thapa …the list goes on. Their painstaking efforts that ensured languages thrived, that saved many endangered languages from perishing silently are elaborated in a lucid fashion. Since language is an integral element of a community's identity, history and politics are also interwoven into the account.

Though the book is meant for young readers (probably 13-14 yrs+ can read and absorb on their own), it astounds us grown ups with a wealth of information.  Reading this book along with your child would be an ideal way to relish it, one that allows lot of discussion and some Google search. 

I cannot sideline an error I noticed on page 65 (in the chapter titled A French Riviera In India) which states Malayalam as official language in Yanam and Telugu as official language in Mahe, it should have been vice-versa. 

Conclusion:

'Languages make us human', and it is also true how symbiotically languages have always required sustained effort and patronage from us humans (of kings or official bodies/ governments) to survive and flourish. As we read, a clear understanding emerges on how language is a potent force in binding people, how it has stirred many peaceful protests and bloody rebellions, and how linguistic apartheid is 'real' !

The bibliography offers scope for lateral reading. The choice of the title and even color of the cover reveal immense care taken by the author in crafting this work. 

'Every language has a story, and every story has a language' - dip into this book that has languages as its chief characters, you will walk out with a little more love for your mother tongue and more pride for the country's linguistic diversity, it's lovely!

An Order from the Sky and other stories

Vasantha Surya, the translator of the book in her introduction quotes a journalist - 'Write what you see, not what you want to see' and Imayam, the author, does the same in this collection of 11 stories.  

A man cajoles, coaxes and even threatens his family deity into giving him an auspicious, go-ahead signal before embarking on an important assignment. You need to read the titular story (also the first one) to know what this important assignment is. 

The translator's prowess comes out clean in 'Bus to Aaladi' that depicts ruckus in a mofussil bus - reeking of sweat, booze and tobacco smell, women quarreling over seat, men casually rubbing their bodies against women feigning innocence and blaming the rush and a conductor chanting 'Ticket, ticket', ignorant of the hell that the packed bus is. 

Imayam writes with a stunning sensitivity on women's issues in stories Payback Time, Sharada, Yearning, Bus to Aaladi. That there is no place for the aged in the society, that irrational faith in God is of no use, that growth and development is squashing up the backbone of the nation - agriculture are other subjects dealt with in these stories. 

That two stories here revolve around politics isn't surprising as Imayam says, 'If you reject politics, you distance yourself from society'. He is a registered member of the DMK party but doesn't hold any party position. Cash for votes, money over merit to get a ticket to contest in elections, the vital role caste plays in politics are examined deftly in 'One of Ours' and 'A Man of the Party'. 

Grounded in reality, mostly set in and around Vriddhachalam, Tamil Nadu, Imayam's stories are neither polemic nor preachy in tone. A minor quibble is that the short story could have remained 'short', repetition as a tool to emphasize one's observations makes some of these stories overly dramatic and lengthy.

I remember reading the line 'to put yourself in someone else's shoes, you need to remove yours first' at a metro station here, and Imayam's stories in this collection ensure we do the first step, observe without judging, be kind, sincere and empathetic. 

A true to life collection !!