raji_c's review
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
4.0
M R Renukumar’s introduction is great preparation for this dive into Malayalam Dalit literature. While this collection like all Dalit literature is ‘inseparably linked to the caste system, which is the basic characteristic of the Indian social milieu’, it ‘maintains a clear and fundamental distinctness from dalit literature in other languages’. This is because ‘Direct caste experiences and their depictions are markedly less severe’ in Kerala. So, ‘dalit writers in Malayalam have had to seek means different from their peers in other languages to identify—through their work—the caste violence implicit in the Malayali public outlook’.
The introduction is a great historical and social context that helped considerably as I attempted to digest this anthology that ranges from the simple (‘In the Fresh Rain’) to the seemingly absurd (‘Slipperiness’ or ‘The Angler’s Gospel’ or ‘A Heroine and Another Woman’). There were tales in here that I couldn’t fathom but almost all of them have memorable bits. For instance, in ‘Slipperiness’, I liked the agency of Sasikala, the character who runs away from her narrator and the woman who voices her desires.
There were stories that brought Rohit Vemula and Payal Tadvi to mind (‘Chiruthakunnu’ and ‘Mea Culpa’), where institutions of learning offer Dalits constant reminders, jocular and otherwise, of their status. ‘Mea Culpa’ in that sense is hard hitting although it’s so simple a tale: Raju K Vasu uses the metaphor of shit splattering the protagonist’s face when his peers—whom he considered friends—remind him of his place in no uncertain terms. It brings up the image of shit being carried by manual scavengers on their heads and in porous baskets, as depicted in Sujatha Gidla’s ‘Ants Among Elephants’ and Savitribai Phule having cow dung hurled at her for working to educate Dalit girls.
Some themes recur in these stories: Dalit individuals are forced to choose a better life at the cost of families and communities (‘Chiruthakunnu’, ‘Kochalimuthukki’s Grandson’)—a part of their identities has to be wiped out if they want to leave poverty behind but the void remains. Similarly, conversion while it seems to offer social betterment (although in ‘Father, here, keep your venthinga’, Devassy discovers this is a cruel sham) there is a yearning for the rituals and way of life left behind (‘Nostalgia’).
I think ‘The Serpent Lover’ is the saddest tale of the collection. I also liked Rekha Raj’s ‘Seedling’, which is a powerful imagining of the desire for the landless to own land that he can farm, a desire so powerful that it brings ghostly ancestors to his aid. The story that lends the collection its title ‘In that case, don’t want caste’ is a simple half-page comment on the bureaucracy that makes the caste benefits that we crib about impotent for so many who need it.
I really liked the collection although the female contributors were too few, as Renukumar himself notes. The translations by Abhirami Girija Sriram and Ravi Shankar are brilliant, I think. They seem to retain the atmosphere and the speech of the land of my parents and all in the only language I can understand well enough.
I had hoped to read at least two more books for Dalit History Month but this is all I managed. But it was an enlightening and engaging read, so I am grateful.
The introduction is a great historical and social context that helped considerably as I attempted to digest this anthology that ranges from the simple (‘In the Fresh Rain’) to the seemingly absurd (‘Slipperiness’ or ‘The Angler’s Gospel’ or ‘A Heroine and Another Woman’). There were tales in here that I couldn’t fathom but almost all of them have memorable bits. For instance, in ‘Slipperiness’, I liked the agency of Sasikala, the character who runs away from her narrator and the woman who voices her desires.
There were stories that brought Rohit Vemula and Payal Tadvi to mind (‘Chiruthakunnu’ and ‘Mea Culpa’), where institutions of learning offer Dalits constant reminders, jocular and otherwise, of their status. ‘Mea Culpa’ in that sense is hard hitting although it’s so simple a tale: Raju K Vasu uses the metaphor of shit splattering the protagonist’s face when his peers—whom he considered friends—remind him of his place in no uncertain terms. It brings up the image of shit being carried by manual scavengers on their heads and in porous baskets, as depicted in Sujatha Gidla’s ‘Ants Among Elephants’ and Savitribai Phule having cow dung hurled at her for working to educate Dalit girls.
Some themes recur in these stories: Dalit individuals are forced to choose a better life at the cost of families and communities (‘Chiruthakunnu’, ‘Kochalimuthukki’s Grandson’)—a part of their identities has to be wiped out if they want to leave poverty behind but the void remains. Similarly, conversion while it seems to offer social betterment (although in ‘Father, here, keep your venthinga’, Devassy discovers this is a cruel sham) there is a yearning for the rituals and way of life left behind (‘Nostalgia’).
I think ‘The Serpent Lover’ is the saddest tale of the collection. I also liked Rekha Raj’s ‘Seedling’, which is a powerful imagining of the desire for the landless to own land that he can farm, a desire so powerful that it brings ghostly ancestors to his aid. The story that lends the collection its title ‘In that case, don’t want caste’ is a simple half-page comment on the bureaucracy that makes the caste benefits that we crib about impotent for so many who need it.
I really liked the collection although the female contributors were too few, as Renukumar himself notes. The translations by Abhirami Girija Sriram and Ravi Shankar are brilliant, I think. They seem to retain the atmosphere and the speech of the land of my parents and all in the only language I can understand well enough.
I had hoped to read at least two more books for Dalit History Month but this is all I managed. But it was an enlightening and engaging read, so I am grateful.
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