The most striking feature of this excellent collection of 88 Tamil short stories is the near-ubiquitous presence of caste. Caste privilege, purity, pollution, exclusion, humiliation, anger, desperation, reform—all these elements are intertwined in these tales, spanning nine decades, from 1913 to 2003. The editor, Dilip Kumar who has also contributed to this collection, must be congratulated for choosing stories that well illustrate diversity of life and ethos among the Tamils.
Expectedly, many of the early short stories are written by Brahmins, and are warmly received by readers of the same community who recognise the nuances of speech, rituals, and customs. This is a perspective well understood by the translator, Subashree Krishnaswamy. Indeed, the finest translations are the stories by the pioneers of Tamil short story such as Va Ve Su Iyer, Aa Madhavaiah, Selvakesavarayar; by later writers such as Kumudhini, SVV; and by contemporary ones such as Indira Parthasarathy, Vaasanthi and Sivasankari. These are narratives that unselfconsciously delineate the world of agraharam (Brahmin quarters), as well as its later avatars, which are found in nuclear family units in urban parts of Tamil Nadu and elsewhere.
Not all the accounts by Brahmin writers are free of angst or about other Brahmins. Apart from delightful tales of human cunning by Kalki, Thi Janakiraman and Sujatha, there are others that reveal uneasiness about caste and class discrimination. Writers such as Rajam Krishnan, R Chudamani and Na Muthuswamy bring in these complexities in a poignant manner. Of course, gifted Dalit writers—Sivagami, Bama and Azhagiya Periyavan—lay bare the dynamics of caste prejudice in day-to-day life, while cultural traits of Tamil Christians and Muslims are heart-warmingly presented by Krishnan Nambi, K Vittal Rao, Kumaraselva, Thoppil Mohammed Meeran and Meeran Maideen.
While describing the writers of the Manikodi movement of 1930s, Kumar says, “(They) plumbed the psychological depths of characters, subjecting them to philosophical scrutiny and in the process often twisted language into new, impossible shapes.” It is admittedly difficult to translate a text characterised by both profundity of thought and intricacies of language. It is hardly surprising, then, that the translator somewhat flounders with the works of complex writers like Mauni, Maa Aranganathan, Sundara Ramaswamy, Ramakrishnan, and Paavanan. In fact, this difficulty is noted by the translator in ‘A Note on the Translation’ when she says, “Translation is a tricky terrain, forcing one to perform many a precarious balancing act.”
While the book includes many themes pertaining to life in the present day, it falls short in one area. Depicting sexuality can constitute a slippery slope for any writer. An excellent narrative about male sexuality, like ‘Thrills’ by C R Raveendran, can only be written by a male writer. However, it must be noted, with some disappointment that the depiction of female desire and sexuality by male writers tends to be inauthentic. Ku Pa Rajagopalan, Sudhakar Ghatak and G Murugan are inclined to sentimentalise or overdramatise female sexuality in their narratives. After all, contemporary Tamil poetry is replete with names like Salma, Malathi Maithree, Uma Maheshwari, Sugitharani and Kutti Revathi, who are unafraid to write about sexuality and have received a lot of flak for doing so. Such niggles apart, this is a collection that deserves to be read and re-read by those interested in probing the depths of the universal human condition.