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by Anjana Appachana Penguin books India, 1991,
ISBN 0-14-017280-7 |
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Anjana Appachana's maiden book - a collection of eight short stories - is another gem of modern Indian literature. Appachana is a south Indian who grew up in Delhi, which she has chosen as the backdroop for the dramas of the lives she portrays brilliantly in this little book. The stories deal with diffrerent kinds of theme: politics, the inimitable Indian bureaucracy, psychology, young children behaving (being forced to behave) like adults, youth which has tasted adulthood all too soon, adults behaving like vicious, selfish children, north vs. south with its gullibility and prejudices; all are treated here in an unforgettable manner. Many of the stories disturbed me deeply. it is an obviously modern book by a modern writer. Or is it? Some of the problems treated here are so eternal, problems which surely existed in my grandmother's if not in my mother's time. What are they doing here, poking their heads into a book of this generation? The enormity of this is what
finally disturbed me very deeply, because there is really no
solution to the problems created by power hungry,
hypocritical people who take shelter behind the veil of
"tradition". The collection hosts a couple of beautifully
humours stories. There is, for example, the story, "When
anklets twinkle", in which Mr. and Mrs. Srivastava are
looking for a tenant for their barsati. Mr. Srivastava knows
what he wants:
"All I
am wanting is good Madrasi tenant for my barsati and only
tenants I am getting are from
north."
Why is he so keen on a
Madrasi? Again in his own words,
"Punjabi
tenant is never vacating any house, is always demanding and
fighting and not agreeing to rent being
raised." A "good"
Madrasi finally arrives on a rainy day. He not only looks
like Kanhaiya (Krishna), but he is also as cunning as
Krishna. When Mr. Srivastava tells him, Though each and every story has its own merits, I personally was most affected by the two stories "Bahu" and "Incantations". Bahu - meaning daughter-in-law - tells the story of the life of a young woman who has married for love and has moved into Siddharth's, her husband's family home. Siddharth's mother rules the household and does not welcome the new member into her household happily. In the beginning, the pin pricks are very subtle, later they grow more open and more daring. Siddharth closes his eyes to what is happening around him. The bahu (it is all the more poignant that she does not even have a name in the story), again a modern woman, tried at first to adjust to the demands. But when she realises that she is losing her personality and is sacrificing all her principles for the sake of her marriage, the bahu decides to walk out of the marriage where she has felt as lonely as never before in her life. The story ends with the bahu walking out. What happened to her afterwards, how she managed on her own in a society in which mother-in-laws have such power and husbands are forever no better than grown-up sons, is anybody's guess. I cannot get over the feeling that the story told in "Incantations" is a true story. Giti is a young teenage girl. She has already devoured Jane Austen's books. giti is full of romantic ideas about life. It is two days before the wedding of Sangeeta, her only sister. That night Sangeeta confides in her young sister that a couple of days earlier, she was raped by Abhinay, the younger brother of Nikhil, whom she is to marry. After marriage, Abhinay moves into the house of his brother. Sangeeta tells Giti during one of her visits to the parents's home, that she is systematically raped by Abhinay during the day and by Nikhil during the night. Giti is not supposed to tell anybody. Naturally the young girl suffers. The parents notice it, but do not understand what is happening and so do nothing directly. Instead, the mother brings home her own sister, a psychologist, to talk to Giti. Mala, the aunt, finds out what is bothering her young niece. Though she acts immediately, it is too late to save Sangeeta, who has at last killed her brother-in-law and has hanged herself. Oh, the Gitis and Sangeetas of this world wrench the reader's heart! |