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Clips from a tale
PHOTO: S. THANTHONI
AT THE READING Subashree Krishnaswamy and Sangeeta Isvaran
It was a celebration of our less than perfect selves, our cute idiosyncrasies and our many `Tamil-isms' that really dominated the reading of Subashree Krishnaswamy's award-winning short story "Bright Pink Butterfly Clips."
Organised by the British Council in association with Prakriti Foundation, the evening started with dancer and performing artiste Sangeeta Isvaran reading the short story that was one of the five winners of the BBC World Service Short Story Competition 2005.
Subashree — writer, translator and editor — is currently waiting for the publication of a guide to South Indian fiction that she has written for Babel Books, U.K. Apart from her many other interests, including children's writing, she is also editor for www.womenswriting.com, a British Council site for South Asian women writers. Her story is about a little Tamil girl who has been eyeing a pair of pink butterfly clips that she can't afford. But that doesn't stop her from visiting the fancy store to check them out once in a while. One such visit leads to her becoming the exotic subject of a camera-toting foreigner. The story, read in a crisp manner, with `full drama' and exaggerated accents had its own exotic moments. The `foreigner' was described as `loose' carrying a camera that hung around his neck like a snake round Shiva's. The `loose', the `maths test-a' all drew appreciative laughter. In fact, the discussion after the reading had the audience contributing their own Tamil-isms, like oil bath, and aiyyo.
Replying to a question, Subashree said although she wrote the short story for the competition there were just a few things she had to change or explain to the international audience of BBC World Wide Service. One was Ganesha, `the remover of obstacles'; the other was vibhuti, `the sacred ash'. There was also the title. The original was: `Mitai Pink Butterfly Clips', "Hot pink would have been too sexy", she said.
MEERA MOHANTY
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