TRANSLATION
Moments of joy
M.T. VASUDEVAN NAIR is rated as one of the best storywriters in Malayalam. These 10 stories translated into English establish him further as a writer worth wider attention, richly deserved. We are grateful to V. Abdullah for the remarkably easy to read translation, making the narration enjoyable with never a dull moment. The foreword by Ayyappa Panickar is of great help in understanding some of the finer literary points. Most of the stories avoid unrealistic melodrama and straining for effect.
Ironies of life
"Kuttiedathi" is about a girl with "a growth on the left earlobe" which, among other drawbacks, attracts unmerited derision even within the family fold. She is a tomboy forced to turn into a rebel. Unable to tolerate the insults any longer she ends her life. "Bondage" is the all-too-familiar tale of a husband who betrays his young wife, child and a baby yet to be born. The third-party allure is altogether overwhelming, but such is the irony of life, as the author believes, that it could all end up inevitably as a movement "From one prison camp to another", the last sentence in the provocative tale.
"Enemy" is a gripping story of a murderer awaiting his desserts, which is, of course, the gallows. Grippingly told, it describes the nuts and bolts involved in the hanging process. "Door of Heaven Open" tells us of someone awaiting death, with interested parties looking on, unexpectedly recovering, and the fallout of the turn of events.
I quite liked the story "The Sale". It has a Mumbai setting, and it's all about a woman of the house who has to shoulder the burden of selling furniture and the odds and ends in a home, with her husband far too busy officially to attend to such matters. The narrator, a journalist, looking for a typewriter, blunders into the scene and what follows is a documentation of what transpires. It's a marvellous study on the subject of loneliness.
"Red Earth", a semi-philosophical tale, holds its own fascination. In "Search of a Refuge", feudal values clash with commonsense, highlighting in realistic detail the conventional respect for the "Yejamman's will".
"Kudugannawa" is the story of a search for a place which, when finally understood, does not exist, at least not by the same name. "Deluge" is yet another suspense story with an unexpected ending.
Surprise ending
Among the most interesting of the stories with a contemporary ring is "Insight", which is all about the family reaction to Sudha Kutty's decision to leave her husband. All the members of the family plead with her to give the marriage a last chance but she will have none of it. So they think that Valliamma or grandmother could give her sound advice and win her back to her senses. What follows is most interesting. Valliamma, who is sans eyes, and sans almost everything, surprises her with the untold story of her own life. She gives full support to Sudha's decision to quit her marriage, stating that it is the best thing that could happen to her. It's a story well told with the least suspected ending.
Wasn't it Thoreau who maintained that most people lead lives of quiet desperation? The 10 stories, while underscoring this reality, also in the bargain bring home the consolation that desperation is all too often relieved by moments of great joy and wonder.
JAIBOY JOSEPH
Kuttiedathi and Other Stories, M.T. Vasudevan Nair, translated from Malayalam by V. Abdulla, Orient Longman, Rs. 230.
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