If you had to pick the best Tamil stories of our time, what would you include? Where – and when – would you begin? The idea is daunting, given the richness and vastness of Tamil literature. But then Perundevi, who has edited the volume, has done it remarkably well. Twenty-two handpicked short stories spanning three decades, several continents and countries, and many faiths explore the idea, identity, and the experience of being Tamil.
In her introduction, Perundevi writes that “a common thread that unites the stories in this anthology is their unflinching confrontation with life and truth, set against the shifting realities of the world outside of them.”
The shifting realities that underpin this collection are truly fascinating. In The King’s Way, Kanmani Gunasekaran (translation N Kalyan Raman), writes about a single journey of therukoothu (street theatre) performers, carrying their “costume bundle, tin trunk filled with jewellery, mattalam blocks, harmonium box.” They are booked for a programme, but they have trouble getting a bus, a seat, space for their boxes, and by extension, space for their art in society. Gunasekaran sketches the artists magnificently, capturing their woes and vulnerability. All night, the performers leap and roar “as kings endowed with all kinds of powers” but in the morning, they squat in the pyol eating “idlis made from sour batter with an excess of baking soda.” And they console themselves by “turning the humiliation they suffered in the world into a joke before the audience.”
Some of the landscapes in the book are familiar to Tamil readers: the towns and villages of Tamil Nadu. Some are fresh and unexpected: a prison in Canada, a casino in North America, a queue in Singapore. The diaspora stories certainly challenge your idea of what and who is Tamil. For Reshma in The Horsewoman, Ambai’s story (translated by GJV Prasad) set in Mumbai, “all women from Tamil Nadu were Mami.” In Latha’s Cheenalatchumi’s Queue, (translated by Janani Kannan) the protagonist does not acknowledge her name which stands for “Chinese Lakshmi”. Is Tamil defined by language, geography or culture?
{{/usCountry}}Some of the landscapes in the book are familiar to Tamil readers: the towns and villages of Tamil Nadu. Some are fresh and unexpected: a prison in Canada, a casino in North America, a queue in Singapore. The diaspora stories certainly challenge your idea of what and who is Tamil. For Reshma in The Horsewoman, Ambai’s story (translated by GJV Prasad) set in Mumbai, “all women from Tamil Nadu were Mami.” In Latha’s Cheenalatchumi’s Queue, (translated by Janani Kannan) the protagonist does not acknowledge her name which stands for “Chinese Lakshmi”. Is Tamil defined by language, geography or culture?
{{/usCountry}}The book that includes stories by celebrated authors like Ashokamitran, Perumal Murugan, Imayam and Jeyamohan, among others, does a fine job of expanding that horizon. The excellent translations are a big plus, transporting dialect, idiom, caste, gender and custom, from Tamil to English elegantly. Try this one on kneecaps, of all things being “shiny as black grams coated with oil”
While the writing is beautiful, the stories are not soft or rose-tinted. In Keeranur Jakirraja’s The Saga of Butchery (translation Kalyan Raman), a butcher tells Vatti Hussain, the man who has hired him to slaughter a camel for Bakrid, that their “leader is feeling bad that there seems to be no difference between those who slaughter pigs and us, who slaughter goats.” It is an unflinching take at the intersection of caste and religion.
Among the gems that Perundevi has picked are stories that explore gender. They make it clear that there is no ‘one Tamil woman’; they are not homogenous. There is the young protagonist in S Ramakrishnan’s Soundaravalli’s Moustache (translated by Yashasvi Arunkumar), who utters the devastating line: “This is enough to marry a well-digger, ma.” The mother and daughter cry, and it’s “not just for Soundaravalli’s moustache.”
In Salma’s Black Beads and Television (translated by Kalyan Raman) Zakiramma has agency, in. She sums up every movie she watches with a single word – “laddu.” The story honestly explores women, desire and leisure: Zakiramma trades her chain of gold beads for plain black ones and buys a television set.
Other stories are equally honest, especially about the male gaze. In Sundara Ramaswamy’s The Breaking of a Story (translated by Janani Kannan), a ‘real live damsel, a tantalizing beauty’ appears magically at Sage Junction. And why is she special? “Her breasts, God almighty! (..) Their eminence. Their ampleness.” The crowd that gathers to ogle makes lurid comments. Reporters and photographers throng the scene and fight to break the story first. It’s an indictment of the media, but it is not in the least baffling. Or new. But the ending certainly is: her breasts vanish from every single photo, just as she does, as mysteriously and suddenly as she appears.
Perhaps the best description of the tone and texture of these stories is the term Perundevi uses: “a katambam – an assortment of fragrant flowers and leaves…”. She notes that the authors “have strung together various subtler aspects of life skillfully onto this thread.” They also bend stereotypes, writing not just about the successful Tamil migrant but simple, ordinary people. Like Appadurai Muttulingam’s hero in Catch A Chunky Goat (translated by Suchitra Ramachandran), who writes a letter from Kingston Penitentiary in Canada. Shanmugalingam Ganesaratnam travelled for 89 days to get to Canada (“It took Columbus only 71 to reach America”). “First a boat, then a train, then in a lorry transporting jackfruit, then in a container ship and finally a plane.” It was the “child’s knickers” on the bed that sent him to jail, the child who started a game of “Catch a chunky goat”, a “game we play in our homeland. The translator must explain.”
And the translator does explain, in page after scene after story. In Shobashakthi’s Uprising (translation Janani Kannan), a superb tale on migration, identity, rights and revolt, two words torment Tharumalingam. All the longing and disappointment and despair of his far-away wife is wrapped and delivered in two tender words: Endra rasa, Tamil for “my love”. What’s not to love about this book?
Aparna Karthikeyan is an independent journalist and author based in Chennai.