CASTE MATTERS

Don’t Want Caste is a collection translated from the Malayalam Njarukal (2014). Edited by M.R. Renukumar, it includes a few stories that are simply rambles, like “In the Fresh Rain”—a prayer for forgiveness from the earth we have assaulted, and an expression of our gratitude when the first drops kiss the parched ground. Bang in the centre is a very short story set in a government office— “In That Case, I Don’t Want Caste”. It is no more than a brief dialogue, but it shows jaati imposed and enforced by bureaucratic rote, even on an individual ready to shed that identity. In many of the stories, the protagonist must abandon home and family to escape the oppressions into which he is born. Every early memory is tainted for such an exile, even the smell of earth and the slush of the paddy fields. Sometimes the Dalit flees into Christianity, with disappointing results.

Even among all the stories that make you twist in anger and shame, A. Santhakumar’s “The Serpent Lover” is a particularly searing tale in which the lovers Ganesan and Sarojam make a tragic discovery about their past. There is occasionally hope, as children who discover their ‘hybrid’ origins find a way to tell their own stories. Rarely, there is humour, as with C. Ayyappan’s villager who is always in the wrong place, seeing what he should not have seen, and telling every secret to just one person. A more poignant humour lies in the last story, Renukumar’s own “Slipperiness”, in which Sasikala is one minute a fictional character in a writer’s imagination, then a woman throbbing with life, and then a character again.

Abhirami Girija Sriram and Ravi Shanker’s translation is part of the Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University project to extend the reach of Malayalam literature. Though only two translators have worked on the stories, the diversity of tone suggests that they have let the writers’ voices shine through.

The project is an effort to extend the reach of Malayalam literature