TAMIL
Heroic women
PREMA NANDAKUMAR
MANGAIYAR KOODAM: Pearl S. Buck; Translated into Tamil by Salem S. Jayalakshmi; Puthumaipithan Pathippagam, Newtechvaibhav, 77, 53rd Street, Ashok Nagar, Chennai-600083. Rs. 250.
IT IS astonishing that a translation published nearly 45 years ago has endured so well, the Tamil diction remaining as fresh and contemporaneous as ever. This has been possible because it is the work of an aspirational young lady's sincere approach to Pearl Buck whose refined dignity in telling a tale is matchless.
Nobel winner, Pearl Buck (1892-1973) has given us several priceless novels, each of which posits an unforgettable family. Her Pavilion of Women, published in the early 1940s made a brave entrance into the feminist agenda and the sexual revolution that rocked the 1960s. What makes Pearl Buck unique is that these ideas flow as strong undercurrents while on the surface we watch a tradition-encrusted, esteemed Chinese joint family of the 1960s.
Mangaiyar Koodam begins on the 40th birthday of Madame Wu when in such status-conscious families the day is celebrated in a grand manner. On that day, she takes a momentous decision: she will request her husband to marry a heteira! Apparently she wants freedom from her husband's bed.
An unwilling Wu marries for a second time but the younger generation cannot accept it easily for they have been influenced by the West which does not sanction official adultery any more.
Though Madame Wu continues to be the head of the extended family, a variety of complications follow. Partial release comes from her friendship with Brother Andrew, a Good Samaritan who helps the poor and the homeless. He gets killed by robbers but not before making a final request to this remarkable lady: "Please look after my flock."
She who had been living for duty now begins to live for love.
For the Indian reader, Mangaiyar Koodam is a perfect gift which deftly uses conventional images of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships, poverty, high aristocracy, ritualism and spirituality.
All these are familiar to the Indian psyche; and so it is not surprising that Salem Jayalakshmi chose to translate the life of Madame Wu, who is no more a fictional character by the time we reach the conclusion of the narrative.
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