SHORT FICTION
There is a story here
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`P. Chandy Mathew and Annie Chandy Mathew have decided to tell the tales that have been rattling around inside their heads all their lives... '
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HUSBAND and wife P. Chandy Mathew and Annie Chandy Mathew have decided to tell the tales that have been rattling around inside their heads all their lives — and they've been so yearning to tell these stories of living and being that they even set up their own publishing house, Unisun Publications, to start themselves off.
Their mission is to publish aspiring writers and encourage Indians writing in English. They published themselves first, because, as Annie Chandy Mathew puts it, "if we don't trust ourselves, who will? There is so much talent out there that deserves to be recognised; we want them to know that we really want to help." However, admirable sentiment is not always a substitute for talent.
Morals everywhere
Looking In, Looking Out is P. Chandy Mathew's "first time creative effort at the age of fifty-five plus when the brain begins to get fuzzy," as he says in his acknowledgements. His collection of 18 stories reads like a particularly bad Standard four textbook, except that these stories are definitely not children's fare. Plots, characters and relationships are laboriously spelt out: "All kinds of people — executives, doctors, engineers, businessmen, lawyers, army officers, retired government official, shopkeepers... [lived in Cariappa Colony]... children walked in and out of each other's houses. Mothers generally fed them and talked to them. They got to know the other mothers; fathers then got to know other fathers... ' — from the story "Cariappa Colony".
The style — if you could call it that — is amateurish: "Jacob and Beena had come to invite us for their daughter's wedding. My friend Jacob was organising a big wedding." Hardly a gripping opening to the story "The Recommendation," or, for that matter, to any story. And that's pretty much how every narrative gets going — a rather painstakingly set out situation that leads to a predictable twist in the tale and on to a ho-hum conclusion. The stories run on almost interminably as Chandy Mathew tries to squeeze a moral out of seemingly ordinary situations. He attempts irony, cynicism, humour, wit and sarcasm in different stories and fails brilliantly.
Tendency to exaggerate
Annie Chandy Mathew's Fireflies in the Dark, a collection of 23 stories is far better — though only in comparison. She is a rather imaginative and creative writer but unfortunately tends towards exaggeration. She has the power to disturb, to make readers stop and think again. However, many of her stories show sparks of brilliance that fade abruptly, like fireflies in the dark. She too falls into the narrative, textbook style and builds up situations creatively but lets them fall flat suddenly, leaving you rather disappointed. She has a fiery imagination, but exaggeration sometimes spoils the effect, leaving you with the idea that her stories and situations have been carefully reconstructed from magazine and newspaper reports. Maybe it's the over-the-top embellishments that make it seem like she hasn't been there or done that, but is just writing about it.
"The Burq'ua" and "Heartaches" are well-told stories. "The Burq'ua" scores for its simple portrayal of how one situation can mean different things to different people — for one young girl a burqa means liberation, while for another it's the shattering of dreams. "Heartaches" uses lines from Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale" to tell the stories of three young people and a teacher who really doesn't know her students as well as she thinks she does.
These volumes would be an inverted example of the adage "Never judge a book by its cover" — they come in beautifully designed, elegant dust jackets but the content is rather disappointing. There are discrepancies in the stories that discerning editing could have picked out. Commas randomly scattered across sentences and badly constructed sentences make reading rather a trial.
Nevertheless, there's a quality of realness to the writing (however bad it is in patches) that makes you realise that these are people who truly believe that the world should be better place, a safer place, a more peaceful place.
Looking In, Looking Out, P. Chandy Mathew, Unisun Publications, hardback, p.250, Rs. 250.
Fireflies in the Dark, Annie Chandy Mathew, Unisun Publications, hardback, p.267, Rs. 250.
SHALINI UMACHANDRAN
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