KOCHI: Indu Menon’s stories are a reflection of our contemporary society. In The Lesbian Cow and Other Stories, she tells the stories of people kept on the sidelines for centuries. These tales are cruel, bloody, gory and are not for the fainthearted. She revels in the beauty of ugliness. Juxtapositioning the cruel and the ugly in beautiful prose, she plays with the reader’s heart without mercy. Her characters, especially the women, don’t bow down in front of unfortunate circumstances. They stand up and fight, sometimes to their death.
In the titular story, The Lesbian Cow, our heroine is a nurse with bovine features. Through the eyes of others, her ugliness is described beautifully in Menon’s clever words. “She smells like a cow, sir. She has a bovine look. Tough, hard feet like hooves,” . Like most of Menon’s characters, the Lesbian Cow doesn’t have a happy ending. Owing to her different features and her unhidden sexuality, she stands out and easily becomes a victim of the cruel society. However, she’s not your typical battered down victim. Even while passionately proclaiming her love, later stalking her heterosexual love interest, and lashing out at rejection, she appears as a grey character; she doesn’t play by the rules of morality or etiquette. However, the ending is as gory and unpredictable as you come to expect from Menon.
Initially published in 2002 in Malayalam, these stories haven’t lost their importance in the past 19 years. Steeped in poetry and bordering on fantasy, Menon’s stories deal with intersectional feminism with honesty. Translated by Nandakumar K, who has made sure the lyricism of Menon’s language doesn’t get lost in any pages. He has done a wonderful job in displaying the ugly and grotesque nature of each tale while keeping the magic of her wonderful prose alive.
The first story in The Creature, deals with the obvious casteism in our country. The battered hero who is fighting for his people against the powerful mining industry is described to be covered in furs like a bear or an ape by his assaulters. From the very moment, he appears in the story, he is dehumanised and likened to a creature. The Creature highlights the racism and casteism that are interwoven in our lives.
All her stories are deeply political. Be it The Muslim with Hindu Features or The Lament of the Eunuch the politics of them doesn’t hide behind veiled words.