Lingua Frank

Of homes and hypocrisy, temple fairs and freedom
Women have been writing in India for at least 2,500 years. One of India’s ancient women poets was a Buddhist nun who wrote of gaining freedom from all the petty things that had held her down. The women authors of these late 20th century novellas also write of petty things and of freedom. Originally written in five different Indian languages, the novellas share a common femaleness. The authors write of women, using images taken from a woman’s experience, but they also write realistically of present-day society and of the past — and they write for both men and women.

In her novella, “Defying Winter”, Nabaneeta Dev Sen looks at an institution that is increasingly in demand as families break up — the old age home or ashram. The residents of the women’s ashram in her novella come from very different backgrounds. Age and experience have given them all individuality and independence of mind. Each speaks in the first person and most prefer the vanvas of the “Twilight Shelter” to the bondage and tension in family relationships.

In “A Woman’s Farewell Song”, Mrinal Pande too looks at old age but in the context of one family. The second section of her novella begins with sentences as arresting as the opening lines of Pride and Prejudice: “The married life of Ramesh and Shushma, Savitri’s oldest son and his wife, was like the lives of most married couples; simple, uncomplicated and free of any intensity or major conflagration. In a word, unbearable.” Pande explores hypocrisy and death, seeing the latter not just as liberation but also as an act of giving birth.

In contrast to the first two novellas, Vaidehi’s transports the reader to a vivid childhood world of south Indian festivals. It is brimful of the freshness of youth. Young girls dare to go to a fair without an older chaperone; they wait excitedly as the procession of the god comes through the streets to their home. Vaidehi points out the things forbidden to girls but not to boys — for example, following the temple procession at night. Like Pande, she uses striking similes. She sees the main road of her town as a parting in the hair and the forked roads where it ends as two plaits.

BM Zuhara is described as the first Muslim woman writer of Malayalam fiction. Hers is a story of transition from childhood to marriage and the sense of loss her protagonist feels in her new role. However, the translator obscures the text by choosing to keep so many original Malayalam words that a reader unfamiliar with the language has to keep referring to the glossary.

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