Anthology chronicles deceits and pleasures of dalit existence

MT.Saju@timesgroup.com

Writers need a great senseof observation when itcomes todetailing innocent pleasures and everyday deceits that take place around them. Tamil writer Bama’s recently-launched collection of 15 short stories chronicle the lives of people with whom she has lived and who are forcedtolive in situations where they are denied freedom and social justice. “My house is testimony to my independence and control over my own destiny,” Bama, a prominent author in contemporary dalitwritings, writes in a short story titled ‘Loss’. “It has been my sanctuary, benignly permitting me tolaugh or weep to my heart’s content within its sheltering walls.”

Titled ‘Just One Word’, the stories are translated from Tamil into English by Malini Seshadri, who has also translated Bama’snovel ‘Vanmam’ into English in 2008. “In these stories you will meet children, women and men whose inner complexities, emotional struggles, and heightened consciousness I have tried to depict, situating them in the social context of their lives,” says Bama. “The characters of these stories bring out emphatically the manifold contradictions based on caste, religion, gender, culture and class that shape their social context.”

Caste domination and social discrimination always find focus in Bama’s works. After her first novel, ‘Karukku’ (1992), she has published ‘Sangati’ (1994), ‘Kusumbukkaran’ (1996), ‘Vanmam’ (2002), ‘Oru Thathavum Erumayum’ (2004), ‘Kondattam’ (2009) and ‘Manusi’ (2011). The plight of the marginalised in society attains space in these stories. “I have written more than 50 short stories and 15 of them have been selected for this collection. Each story is based on the day-to-day experiences of a dalit. We wantedto add a note abouttheexperiences that led to each story, but dropped it due to lack of space,” she said. The stories in ‘Just One Word’ have been published in different periods. Seven storieswere publishedin 2003 under the title ‘Oru Thathavum Erumayum’ (The Old Man and the Buffalo), five storiesfrom the collection ‘Kondattam’ (Celebration) published in 2009, and the rest were written between 2003 and 2015.

“We always thought education would abolish caste hierarchies in society. But that didn’t happen. The educated still look at us only through the eyes of caste. We are struggling to prove our existence. And that’s why wechose‘JustOne Word’ for the title of the book,” said Bama.

Writer and theatre activist A Mangai finds Bama’s ‘women protagonists quarrel, laugh, fight with their husbands and lead their lives alone.’ “They are survivors. They are not ‘heroic’. What they have is a love for life. Bama doesn’t romanticise her female characters. They are equally products of the society they live in, and reek of all the prejudices that operate within it,” Mangai writes in the introduction to the book. Published by Oxford University Press, the book is edited by Mini Krishnan.

Source: The Times of India