Maria, Just Maria

 

“It's not a question of belief, Appacha. It's a question of belonging. It's about being with people we know, in a place we are familiar with. A place where we belong because of who we are, no matter what we do in our lives”. For Maria who thinks real life is boring and madness might add a bit of interest to it, does such a place exist in real life or is it only in dreams?

Maria, Just Maria by Sandhya Mary, translated from Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil begins at a psychiatric hospital where Maria is being treated. From a sensitive, precocious & innocent child to an adult in 30s, struggling to live, Maria's journey unfolds in a non-linear fashion for the scatterbrain she is.

The youngest of four children, Maria is cast aside as an avoidable extra. She grows up at Kottarathil Veedu, her ancestral house. Geevarghese, her maternal grandfather (Appachan) who equals her in craziness is her best buddy. 

“What is the point in living without knowing the history of your own family and your ancestors?” says Appachan and we are regaled with stories of a plethora of colorful characters who sprawl like a banyan. Of ancestors, uncles and aunts, of an ancestor who was an outstanding magician, of Appachan's grandmother who aced prophesying, of Appachan's father whose temptation of finding a place in heaven superseded all other temptations, Appachan's own life story about his friends, his wife, his children and even of a saint who inspired his name, the stories here are aplenty. Chandi, the dog and Ammini, the parrot add an interesting anthropomorphic element.

Largely from Maria and her Appachan’s POV, through foibles of characters here, the author holds a mirror to our world that cannot think beyond binaries - haves & have nots, First world & Third world, normal-abnormal; a digital world that runs only on 0s & 1s, one that kneads, stretches and snips people to fit them into readymade moulds. Even though this sounds heavy, the author writes in an unshowy, funny manner balancing tragedy and comedy. If Maria's conversations with Karthav (Christ) are hilarious, her situation when she eventually moves in with her parents & siblings tears our heart asunder. The vast array of characters may leave us readers complaining, but the author makes sure that she enables our understanding of Maria, our becoming more tolerant to those who are widely different from us.

In a discussion between the author and the translator shared in the insights section at the end of the novel, the translator quotes Edith Grossman - “A translation can be faithful to tone and intention, to meaning. It can rarely be faithful to words or syntax, for these are peculiar to specific languages and are not transferable.” Jayasree Kalathil’s translation does this for there’s a little something that shifts in us at the end of the novel. Maria’s declension, her simple options for a happily ever after which feel hard to attain in this world moves us to tears. An activist-researcher in the field of mental health and human rights, author of ‘The Sackcloth Man’, there’s no one more fitting than Jayasree Kalathil who can translate this work. Fighting standard definitions of who’s a success and who’s a wastrel, or even wondering who discovered time is a thing to be used, this pretty unique novel instills in us, if not empathy, a restraint in terming someone struggling to live as mad. The cover design by Aashim Raj and the cover illustration by Nupur Panemangalore do complete justice to the story. 

Can't this world be a little more inclusive? This is the question we are left with at the end of this moving novel, the story of Maria who misplaced a few years of her life, or should we just say, the story of Maria, Just Maria.

A Fine Thread and Other Stories

 

A collection of sixteen stories, A Fine Thread and other stories by Tamil author Jeyamohan, translated by Jegadeesh Kumar, stands as a testament to the author's opinion that a writer shouldn't have a single political/ideological stand, for many stories in this collection feature a fierce clash of opposing perspectives. Debating on what's real and what’s an illusion, what's reverent and blasphemous, packed with accessorial information that make the reader think beyond the plot and the characters, Jeyamohan's stories pulsate with energy.

Though the collection has a somber start with ‘Ocean’s Nearby’ , it hits a crescendo with ‘Bubbles’, where a wife intends to get a breast augmentation surgery done against her husband's wishes. What happens when Mahatma Gandhi meets the Pulayar leader, Ayyankali for the first time, their imagined conversation makes up the story ‘A Fine Thread’. Curse/sin and atonement are at the center of stories ‘Shadow Crow’ and ‘Brother's Shadow’. While the former is light in tone with a man atoning for his grandfather’s mistake, the latter holds you by the scruff of your neck, sends a chill down your spine where a man suffering from schizophrenia fails to atone for a grave sin he committed. ‘The Angel’ traces a story in pre-independence Nigeria and subtly superimposes it over India at the end. What happens at the foot of Mt Yasur volcano almost over a century after the artist Charles Frazer witnessed a cannibal feast here has our complete attention in the story ‘The Volcanic Torch’.

A machine that erases a select portion of history, an attar seller from Maraikayyar community whose fortunes rose and ebbed like tides, a young man who turns jubilant when the girl he silently adores for three years comes up and talks to him; from small towns and quaint villages near Kanyakumari and Nagercoil in India to Nigeria, then to Russia in 1917 and to the Tanna island in South Pacific Ocean in Vanuatu Republic; from portrayal of casual misogyny at workplace to how injustice and oppression foments violence, how scientific research is stifled by mediocre top level officials - in themes, in locales, in emotions evoked and thoughts left behind in the end, the range in these stories is spectacular and breathtaking. A whirlwind of a collection!

Endnotes on Author and Translator - 

The author's body of work includes more than 300 short stories, volumes of literary criticism, travelogues, landmark novels like Venmurasu, Kotravai, Vishnupuram, Pinthodarum Nizhalin Kural (from which three excerpts feature in this collection). The writer of dialogues in Tamil for Mani Ratnam's movies PS 1 and PS 2 is another  feather to his cap. I usually tend to think of probable lines in the original when I read works translated from Tamil (my mother tongue). When a translation allows me this, I am content. For many stories here, I was fully involved in absorbing the arguments presented by the author. The supplementary details packed in these stories also sent me on mini Google search assignments that I skipped this thinking back in Tamil exercise, Jegadeesh Kumar's translation never once impeded my reading process. Thanks to his translation effort, these stories are now available to readers across the world. 

Some Thoughts After Reading Kalki's Works

 

Kalki R Krishnamurthy wrote Parthiban Kanavu (Parthiban's Dream in translation), the sequel to Sivakamiyin Sabatham (Sivakami's Vow in English) first. Serialized in his magazine in 1941, Parthiban Kanavu was a stupendous success. Sivakamiyin Sabatham was serialized later between 1944-46. It is noteworthy that in Nandini Vijayaraghavan’s translation, Parthiban's Dream saw the light of the day first. And staying faithful to the chronological order, I read the sequel work first.

Sivakami's Vow published by Penguin India, the entire novel is split into four volumes

A page from Parthiban's Dream, the sequel to Sivakami's Vow.
Published by Ratna Books, this book boasts of beautiful, monochromatic illustrations by Gopulu Sir,
a popular cartoonist for many Tamil weekly. These illustrations clearly elevate the reading experience.

Both these novels amply highlight the adverse impact of war, the toll it takes on lives and environment for generations, a much needed reminder in today's world. That religion and politics make a highly inflammable combination is another area of focus. Kalki brought to life the reign of Pallavas, Cholas and Chalukyas, even Cheras and Pandyas, in his works at a time when the Internet didn't exist. His descriptions compelled people to visit or dream about Mamallapuram, Kanchi, Ajanta caves and Badami. Top notch characterization, portrayal of romance with an old world charm, a multitude of twists involving shrewd spies, able military commanders, masquerading kings, valorous common men, many promises to keep - these two works share many similarities between them. However, it one difference between them that stood out for me and will stay with me. Even when we adore our parents for the way they brought us up and mostly agree with their approach, there’s a part of us that refuses to be like them when we become a parent ourselves. We consciously steer away from how they would have thought or acted, vowing to make a change for our children.

At the end of Sivakami's Vow, it's the fate of two star-crossed lovers - Narasimha Pallavar and Sivakami, her unrequited love that leaves us teary eyed. When I finished reading the book last December, I grasped entirely why emperor Narasimha Pallavar did everything he did in Parthiban's Dream, quite unlike his father and predecessor Mahendra Pallavar, to aid the fruition of his dear daughter Kundavai's dream. In getting Kundavai married to her lover Vikraman, may be Narasimha Pallavar healed a little part of his broken self. First as a father who wants his daughter to be happy, and then a dutiful monarch, he won my heart many times over in Parthiban's Dream.

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.