\bt pU vANGgaliyA pU \et is about two people - a female flower vendor and a male customer who regularly used to buy flowers from her for his newlywed wife, until the wife dies suddenly. The vendor doesn't know why he has suddenly stopped buying and tries to interest him in buying from her again. One day however she is not found in her regular "stall". Now, the customer becomes curious. A couple of days later the vendor gives up her "stall" and begins to sell flowers house-to-house. The customer hears her and calls her in only to find that she is n o longer wearing her mark (\bt pottu \et) on her forehead, nor any flowers. He realises that she is now a widow and cannot have any use for her own flowewrs. In a moment of impulse, he buys some flower and then places it on her hair. She is shocked and runs away. Again, a n emotional story told in a restrained tone. \vElai koduththavan \et is a sweet, love story about two working class young people, neither one of whom has any other relative in the wide world. It is about how they get to know each other in a very short while, initially suspicious of each other, but get attracted to, and trusting of, each other and begin to live together. A rather "revolutionary" topic for the thamizh readers steeped in kalki, lakshmi, and other writers in the mass market magazines of the day. \bt rAsa van^dhuttAru ...\et is the tragic tale of a woman, now very old, whose husband has left her in the harbour area of Madras city, as he went away to join the army in the days of drought, promising to come back to her soon. He never does. But she has grown old waiting for him in the same place for several years true to him and his memory till she dies. Again JK's use of language and ability to bring the setting alive are masterful. \bt rikshAkkAran bAshai \et is a satire on how the self-proclaimed civilized, upper classes look down upon the toiling masses and considers them and their lingo uncivilized and barbarian, but do not fail to stoop to even more vulgar and mean language of their own when their economic interests are threatened, whereas the working classes retain their dignity. \bt thamizhachchi \et is a different kind of story. It reminds the reader of two pudhumaippiththan stories - \bt kadavuLum kan^dhasAmip piLLaiyum \et, and \bt ponnagaram \et. It is also rich in allusions. Jk shows here that he can wield the formal, literary style just as well and as powerfully and tellingly, as the language of the labouring classes and pavement dwellers of Madras. n^Aradhar infuriates iLaNGgO adikaLand kaNNaki (author and heroine, respectively, of the ancient thamizh epic silappadhikAram) by describing the current (1950s) state of morality of the people of thamizh n^Adu and their living conditions. So, they come down to earth to see for themselves. They actually come down to madhurai, the city of kaNNaki's early triumph and tragedy. They arrive at the madhurai bus stand just around sunrise. An overzealous policeman stops them, mistakes them for a prostitute and her pimp, and questions them , but is not satisfied by iLaNGgO's factual explanations. Then he thinks that kaNNaki has some valuables tucked away around her waist in her saree and lounges forward to grab it. iLaNGgO shouts: "\bt dEy! avaL kaNNakiyadA, kaNNaki \et" But the keeper of the law ignores him. An enraged iLaNGgo then flattens him with one blow and they move into the city. Then they go to the temple and are saddened by the state of disrepair everywhere, and by the sight of a thamizh woman eating from left over food thrown on the street (echchil ilai). Next, they come across a sudharsanam piLLai (obviously modelled after the kazhakam orators) who waxes eloquent over the glories of the thamizh people and their language in some public meeting. When iLaNGgo approaches him after the meeting as a thamizh poet he rudely ignores him first, but after seeing kaNNaki he invites them to come and stay with him in his house. The visitors talking among themselves praise his hospitality \bt enna virun^dhOmbum paNpu \et. Around 10 p.m. iLanGgo decides to go the vaigai river. On the way he is waylaid by a bunch of prostitutes who accost him. He doesn't understand their language. One of them boldly drags him into her hut. Then he realises what it is all about and runs back to piLLai's house. The door is locked. He knocks and knocks, but for a while there is no response. Then he hears a loud laugh - the same awe inspiring, blood curling laugh which was heard when kaNNaki burnt down ancient madhurai. The door opens and there is the vision of the kaNNaki of that day before him with unkempt hair and enraged eyes and blood stained hands and nails and at her feet is the dead, inert body of their host. iLaNGgo shouts "dhEvI!" and is left speechless. The scene shifts to vaigai river bed. iLaNGgo adikal is in deep sorrow and crying uncontrollably like a baby. nAradhar meets them and tries to assuage their hurt feelings. iLaNggo admits that nAradhar was right, and he wrong about the thamizh people, nAradhar tries to pacify him by saying, "You were still steeped in the ancient glories and expecting them to continue. I was just telling you the modern reality." iLaNggo admits that this modern thamizh n^Adu is not for him and with a sorrowing heart accompanies nAradhar to his "heavenly" abode. But, kaNNaki? In a masterful ending, JK says that she stays back and chooses to live amongst her people! \bt - kaNNaki? ...Am; avaL pOkavillai. nammidaiyE vAzhkiRAL.!" Sheer, inspired genius, that! That line keeps reverberating in the reader's ears and mind, long after he has finished reading it and over the years, in sleepless nights in forlorn lands over the seas and hills and mountains. That story also shows the great respect JK has for women and the great hopes he places in them, in their life-sustaining and life-enhancing qualities. He is truly, our first genuinely feminist writer!
To continue with my summary of the other stories in jeyakAn^than's
short story collection, \bt oru pidi sORu \et.
\bt edhu, eppOdhu \et [What to do, and When?]
is a satirical story, rich in
irony and humour, but very short, in fact the shortest
story in the collection. It is about "Mount Road maikkEl"
who just wanders the roads in search of cast away food
(\bt echchil ilai \et) because he is poor and has no job
and .... (we don't know what else). One day, as he is idly circling
the roads in the city, he sees one of those evangelicals and
a small crowd. The preacher hands out a printed notice.
maikkEl picks up one and reads it ( Yes. he is literate).
It is in thamizh. It warns the reader about the dire consequences
of not following the teachings of the one true God and His only
begotten Son and to beware of the Day of Judgment. He comes to
the passage: "Knock! And, It shall be opened. Ask! And, Thou shalt
be given.....Tommorrow will take care of itself." As the puzzled
maikkEl ponders : "Where am I supposed to knock? What will be
opened? What am I supposed to ask for? What will be given?" etcetera,
he suddenly hears a loud thud. To maikkEl's well trained ears,
it is the sound of a cast away banana leaf with some leftover food.
He immediately drops the evangelist's notice and runs to the food
and starts eating. End of story.
One is reminded of Gandhi's quote of the
Hindi proverb: "bhUkE bhagati na bhu(v)AlU!' [To the hungry,
God appears in the form of bread (first).]
\thani manidhan \et [Man, Alone] is the odd man out
in the collection. The
time is the age of the nomadic man, before agriculture and
settlements and civilization began - the age of the hunter,
food-gatherer. A MAN (\bt AN \et) is separated from his clan
after a bitter fight with a rival clan. Both clans,
take him for dead and the defeated people of his own clan run away.
But he is not dead, only grievously wounded. He drags himself
to a secluded place. Suddenly a WOMAN (\bt peN \et) from the
rival clan finds him. She hides him from her people,
nurses him back to health, and they move away from all others
and live by themselves in the wide open forests. They delight in,
and live for, each other. They hunt and gather and eat and live
together. Soon she is pregnant with his child. But, this
idyll is not to last. There are dark clouds on the horizon.
One day, the sound of war drums shatters the peace.
>From above, they look down upon the valley and river bed below.
They see a group of people on warpath. They get closer and
from their hiding place they observe the intruders. Lo and behold!
They are his clanspeople! Now the two can hear them talking. The strangers
speak his language! Their words are sweet music to him. He wants to
go back and join them. She gets afraid and angry by turns. She
had given up her everything, her clan, her people, her way of life,
her language for him. But the ungrateful wretch wants to go back!
How could he? He realises that if he takes her back with him to
them, his clan will decide that he has gone "native" and kill them both.
He decides to jettison her and go back and join them. He decides to
hide his true intentions from her and tells her that he will never,
never ever leave her. She jumps with joy and hugs and kisses him.
But she is wary. She doesn't let him out of her sight, night or day.
Seasons change. The clan decides to move. And he is in a dilemma.
She watches him like a hawk. The clan makes the final preparations for
their move. It is now or never for him. They begin to march away.
She is happy that they are at last leaving. He is behind her. Then he
makes up his mind. He draws his bow and shoots his arrows at her,
not just one, but three, one after the other in quick succession.
She falls face down. As she turns over and tries to see who shot her,
she sees him running away to join HIS community, HIS clan, leaving her
behind, who doesn't belong! She crawls along the same path which he took
staining the path with his blood, when she found him seasons ago.
As she lays a-dying, \bt an^dha nanRi kettavan - suyan^lamennum
sAkkadaiyile neLiya vENdiya puzhu, thurOki, saNdALan, pathithan -
than samUkaththil saNGgamamAkik kalakka OdukiRAn." ... "thurokakakaRai
padin^tha, avan virain^dhOdiya vazhiyilE avaL mukam pudhaiththu
uyirizhan^dhu savamAyk kidakkiRAL. samUkaththin vaLarchchip pAdahiyilE
idhupOnRa thanimanidhach chavaNGgaL onRA, iraNDA? - anan^tham,
anan^tha kOdi anan^tham! adhu, an^dhap pAdhai, samUkam vaLarn^dhu van^dha
vazhiyA? alladhu, thani manidhan nadan^dhu van^dha vazhiyA?"
{English translation of the passage: 'That ungrateful wretch - the worm
who ought to wallow in the gutter of selfishness, traitor, unfit
for human company, the meanest of the mean - runs away to join and
become one with, and nameless in, the crowd of his community, his clan.
... Her corpse lies on the path marked by the stain of his betrayal, the
path which he took to run away from her after slaying her brutally.
Are there just one or two corpses like hers marking the onward march
of society? No, They are countless. There are millions and millions
of them, an infinite number. That path of society's onward march! Does it
mark society's progress? That path! Or, does it merely mark one woman's
sacrifice/murder, another's treachery on which society was built?}
Obviously, those
who understand thamizh would readily recognize that my translation,
does not, cannot do justice to to the powerpacked brevity of JK's words.
What is interesting here is that a 21 year-old, high school dropout,
fortunate enough to find himself in the company of many self-schooled,
older scholars and also the privileged who had given up their
wealth and priviliges and joined the communist party in the hope of
building a classless society, has already begun to question and HENCE
think for himself. And that too, in a tradition-bound, class and
caste-ridden society. Remarkable! And, we see the
gnawing doubts and concerns about the conflict between the
rights of the community, the society, the group and the rights of
individuals. Are we merely members of a herd, or are we individuals who
should/ought to look for each other coming together as individuals?
Can society only progress by ignoring, nay, violating individual
rights, only by violence and treachery? Obviously, this intelligent,
rational, thinking-for-himself man is not going to be allowed to
continue in the Communist Party of India (or of any country)!
And, there is that overarching question which would never go away -
the question of man's inhumanity to, and exploitation of, and violence
towards woman - his betrayal, his treachery and her guileless and
selfless love, his predilection to be clannish, mechanical, and her
creativity, her courage to be an individual, to swim against the tide;
basically, woman's courage and sacrifice and man's cowardice and violence.
A story which doesn't end, a story which never has, nor can have, The End
or finis written, a story which leaves more questions in
the reader's minds, and, does all this while it holds his
attention and doesn't preachify!
The next story \bt tiredil \et, for treadle in the old, offset
printing presses is about a bachelor treadle-operator, on whom
falls all the important work of the press. He dreams of printing his
wedding invitation in his "own" press and
getting married and bringing his wife home to his aged mother.
He even asks his employer for some money to help him accomplish it.
And the man agrees, after asking him to stay late and finish
off a job. vinAyakam (irony here. vinAyakar or ganEsh removes all
impediments to success and happiness) finishes the job. But he feels
sudden shoots of pain in his groin area. As he walks back home, he can
bear it no longer. It is strangulated hernea. He is rushed to the
hospital just in the nick of time and operated upon. However, while
discharging him, the doctor tells him that he cannot marry. viNayakam
is back at the press soon printing customers' wedding invitations
and bitter about his own lost dreams. It was a tear jerker, and when
it was first published, it was a story much talked about and admired.
I leave it to the cognoscenti to judge JK's knowledge of disease,
diagnosis, medical treatment and cure!
The last story, a delightful, descriptive yarn \bt pattaNam
sirikkiRadhu \et is about a young couple from the village who
come to visit the city \bt pattaNam \et with their baby. The cityslickers
make fun of their appearance, their "smell' ignoring their own
stench from body odour. But it also subtly shows how the city corrupts
the simple, honest, unspoiled but by no means dumb, villagers.
[THREAT: To be continued.]
NOT opinionated, but just having and expressing opinions
for which I am solely responsible.
Swaminathan SANKARAN
Telephone: (306) 585-4988
FAX: (306) 585-4805
From sankaran@leroy.cc.uregina.ca Fri Feb 16 20:43:33 1996
From: sankaran@leroy.cc.uregina.ca
To: Geetha Ramaswami
NOT opinionated, but just having and expressing opinions
for which I am solely responsible.
Swaminathan SANKARAN
Telephone: (306) 585-4988
FAX: (306) 585-4805