ISSUE 44

Some life experiences can be so violent, so beyond the norm that one simply cannot reconcile them within everyday realities. Weaving in and out of the horrific violence of the Bangladesh Liberation War, the narrative in Shaheen Akhtar’s ‘Déjà Vu’, translated from Bangla by Arifa Ghani Rahman, moves seamlessly between the real, the remembered and the surreal, all the while maintaining a sense of menace and terror. As her rickshaw creeps ‘silently through a grieving city’, the protagonist speaks to us of the flawed choices she must make, and has made, and we are drawn into her journey that is fraught with a profound sense of loss. We publish this story, only a few days after March 26th, the day that is held as Independence Day by Bangladesh.

Wars are bracketed, often identified by the dates when they begin and end, but the repercussions of their violence extend far beyond those times. Equally without limit are the repercussions of cultural violence, insidious and pervaded with the intent of obliteration. And yet, the triumph of individuals brings a sense of hope and a perspective on a possible, more just future. In Adivasi writer Jagadeesh Mallipuram’s ‘My Name is Sombara’, translated from Telugu by Sowmya V B, a young man cries out ‘Who is trying to take me away from my own culture? Who is hijacking my language in the name of religion? Why do we need religion?’ The narrative is intense, examining self and place and setting with a direct eye and moving from village to the local bureaucratic centre, from childhood, through entry into school to adulthood, weaving in and out of the intense feelings evoked by memory. When called back home, the young man must identify who he is in relation to his roots and understand the meaning of his declaration, ‘I am a human/ I am an Adivasi/ I don’t have a religion/ My name is Sombara!’

Individual subversions are at the core of the next two stories. In Gayatri’s ‘City Whisperer’ a tender understanding develops between the taciturn Venkat and his granddaughter as she discovers how he has painstakingly recreated his village in the city. One early morning, she is awakened by him to see ‘the parijat’s bonsai-like canopy … glistening with dew-laden orange stemmed white flowers’, as also the ‘deep red from the hibiscus’, a blanket of frangipani and ‘dainty moringa blossoms dotted … like a powdery summer snowfall’. Enchanted, she is drawn into the magic he has created, and we follow her connection to this magic as she grows from being a lost little girl to a young woman with a daughter of her own.

The tragedy of Jayalakshmi Kumar’s ‘Love Song’, first published around 1938, is that young protagonist’s act of protest, of stepping away from being bound in a marriage that will bring her no joy, of deciding not to live ‘with a perpetual mask in the household of a man … [she does] not love’, this act is so relevant even now that the story may well be set in contemporary times. Provoking ‘questions about caste’, as her granddaughter, Kirtana Kumar says, the story is told with a clean, restrained elegance. It begins with the statement, ‘I shall tell you why I have no relations visiting me, even though my parents and brothers and sisters are all alive and well-to-do,’ and as a reader, the import of this complete severance and isolation cuts deep to the gut.

‘In All Fairness, this is Life’ by Praveena Shivram takes place in a hostel for women. Bharathi has been a target from the day she arrived, for her dark skin and country ways. Her main tormentor, relentless and popular, is Thilaga, who appears to have everything – good looks, a string of admirers and, of course, fair skin. One day, when Bharati sets out to work, a tube of fairness cream in her purse, she thinks she recognises Thilaga, being attacked at the station. This is a story about how fear and anxiety can paralyse you, and how even when you know what you must do, you don’t. This is a story where the reader wants to cry out and say – I understand you, but this is fiction, don’t be like me, be a hero!

The stories described above all, in some way, lay bare the pain and dysfunction rendered when one is betrayed by family, community or society. This next story deals with betrayal on a personal level, and amongst the most terrible personal betrayals is, of course, discovering that the person to whom one has taken that mad courageous leap of declaring one’s love, one’s partner, not necessarily bound to one by duty, or shared history or the law, but by self-declared love, has proven false. The power of Vasudha Katju’s story, ‘I Don’t Remember‘, lies in the fact that we are never introduced to the protagonist, not her voice, nor her feelings. In this call and response story, the call is silent, and we feel the profundity of the betrayal and the cowardice of the man as he protests his innocence in what appears to be a rape at a party.

In ‘A Simple Portrait’, we encounter one of author Mohit Parikh’s familiar, finely rendered characters, Manan, as a young man. Manan has joined the Amanishah Cricket Club, but it is clear, very soon to the narrator and everyone else in the club that they have a ‘malnutritioned, unusual, lover of the game in the squad who wasn’t looking to be a professional athlete’. As a particular friendship develops between them, the narrator recognises, even more strongly than ever, that Manan is kind, remote and driven by demons that have nothing to do with performing well in the game. What will the narrator take from his odd companion?

The spirits lift with Meera Rajagopalan’s ‘Genie in a Bottle’. It is Donor Day at the New Hope Children’s Home (for Orphans). Eighteen-year-old Veera, one of the oldest in the Home, must marshal the other boys into appropriate behaviour lest the donors pull out. Enterprising and bright, but unable to do well in school, he has come to be someone the warden counts on. Shortly before their arrival, the warden discovers that the picture of Jesus presented by the donors at their previous visit has been defaced. Will Veera’s extraordinary and ingenious efforts to repair the damage lift him into a better place?

The eight stories described above constitute Out of Print 44.

The art on the cover of Out of Print 44 is by Varunika Saraf.