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by in Selected by Urvashi Butalia
& Ritu Menon |
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"In Other Words: new writing by Indian women", a collection of short stories selected by Urvashi Butalia and Ritu Menon was published by Kali for Women in 1992. It contains fine stories by 14 different women writers of India. Among them is a story, "Portrait of a Childhood" by Shama Futehally. Naturally nostalgic in tone, this is the story of the growing up of a young girl, who looks back at a world that was everything to her, a world which is no more. "From the beginning we knew that our home was different..." That is how the story starts. As I read it, I felt I could resonate the feelings of the young girl. Which kid does not know - and feel - that it is different, that its home is different from those of the rest of the world? I also felt a pang of pain, remembering the world I had lost as I grew up. I do not know many people who would not react like me to Futehally's opening sentence. Of course, it is nice to be an adult, to experience one's share of pleasures - and pains in life. One believes that as an adult, one is able to bear the resposibility for one's life, is able to weigh and balance what one knows and to come to decisions. But all these beliefs often pale before the feeling of being helpless in many circumstances. Of being able to do nothing when faced with injustice. Such realisation comes simultaneously with the understanding of having lost something on the way to adulthood. Something that normally comes with two faces - innocence and security -even if they are not recognised when one is young. Shama Futehally's story is special because the young girl's acceptance of her world as being hers by right is tinged by an uneasy feeling that things are not necessarily what they appear. Beyond the exquisite garden in front of the house with the blue walls, are fields with toddy palms, with not another house in sight except that of the cousins ... It is these that harbour unnamed monsters, ready to devour what is familiar. There are squatters on the fields but it is not more serious than being something to be ashamed of - when visitors were around. Pages: 1 - 2 |