The first tale in Ganga’s Choice & Other Stories, Vaasanthi’s anthology translated from Tamil, begins with a sense that something is amiss. We meet a mother fiddling with a lock, a child reluctant to accompany her, and streets with no birdsong or barking dogs. Suspicions are confirmed when a character asks, “Is the body ready for burial?” But the tale unfolds slowly. The reader is left wondering where it’s heading, trying to piece together scattered hints, and imagining backstories, as Vaasanthi coaxes out details, one after the other, at a leisurely pace, and suddenly, drops the ultimate revelation, which ties the narrative.
Her plotting style initially intrigues. It stokes the reader’s curiosity and makes one invested, but the tales follow this format repetitively, and reading the anthology at a stretch feels as if the author is putting new characters and settings into an old mould.
While some of the short stories offer unexpected twists, many also have predictable endings. In some, the premise may be exciting and the build-up elaborate, but they ultimately fizzle out. Some stories are succinct, while others meander. There is variety among the plot resolutions too, with both heartening and dismal endings. The diversity among the stories comes at the cost of coherence as there is no overarching theme or style. Perhaps, the only thing they have in common is a desire to catalogue social evils.
Vaasanthi’s fiction is enmeshed in the everyday world and domestic sphere. Household conflicts and tensions often propel the narratives. Many of her protagonists are women negotiating patriarchal constraints and societal expectations. Some stories are tied to real-world events, such as the migrant exodus during the pandemic, Kargil war, and terrorism. These highlight consequences of powerful people’s decisions and societal norms on individuals. The problem is that they do not do much else.
Consider ‘He Came’, the story about migrant labourers––far less evocative than many news reports–– is about two friends, a Hindu and a Muslim, returning to their village during the lockdown. It showcases the suffering of the underprivileged, but the characters merely seem like placeholders for misfortune.
The stories focus on highlighting social issues rather than building a credible fictional universe. This is not to say that good fiction must shun political or social concerns. In fact, Vaasanthi melds these quite well in a couple of other stories. In ‘The Line of Control’, the fears of an old man underscore the rifts bigotry and violence create.
Fiction can be a vehicle for social change, but merely highlighting issues is unlikely to alter perceptions, and this collection has a bit of both––stories that seamlessly weave in social problems, and the ones that don’t.
Ganga’s Choice & Other Stories
By: Vaasanthi
Publisher: Niyogi Books
Pages: 256
Price: Rs 450