Two tales of one city
The stories in the book, spanning from the 1980s to the 2000s, capture Jayant Kaikeni’s dialogue with both Bombay and Mumbai
Jayant Kaikini, a seasoned storyteller and a true connoisseur of Mumbai’s culture, embarks on a journey through the city’s heart, using his narrative compass to unveil its soul. He sees the city’s everyday simplicity not just as a way of life but as a spiritual experience.
“Bombay, in its own unique way, simpli es life, even in its language,” he says, from Mumbai.
Jayant reects on the city’s collective spirit, where its people readily step forward in moments of need.
According to him, this communal ethos, steeped in mutual assistance and a mindset puri ed of petty disparities, is the true essence of Mumbai.
Jayant’s latest anthology, Mithun Number Two and Other Mumbai Stories (published by Eka), translated by Tejaswini Niranjana (from Kannada to English), is not about the city per se.
Yet the stories, spanning from the
1980s to the 2000s, capture the author’s dialogue with both Bombay and Mumbai.
Growing up in Gokarna, Jayant’s storytelling journey was nurtured amidst the blossoming of modern Kannada literature, pollinated by writers like P Lankesh and Girish Karnad.
In Mithun Number Two and Other Mumbai Stories, the role of Tejaswini Niranjana’s translation is pivotal. She skillfully channels the original’s lyrical prose and deep emotional resonance, oering readers a window into Bombay’s soul through her translation, thereby emphasising the crucial role of translation in making literature accessible to a global audience.
“Collaborating with Tejaswini on translations has been a seamless experience, mainly because she is a poet herself. Not only has she published poetry collections and translated Pablo Neruda into Kannada, but her poetic sensibility aligns closely with mine. She creates the rst draft, and we jointly decide which stories to include,” adds Jayant.
The duo’s previous collaboration, No Presents Please, another volume of selected Mumbai stories, became the
rst book in translation to have won the DSC South Asian Literature Prize in 2018.
His Bombay is a city of contrasts and conuences, where the cacophony of languages and the jostle of cultures blend into a harmonious symphony. “Bombay’s diversity and liberating atmosphere profoundly impacted me,” Kaikini reects. His stories, set against the city’s multifaceted backdrop, dance through its languages — Kannada, Konkani, Hindi, Marathi, and Gujarati — mirroring his own multi-lingual journey.
“Unlike those who seek enlightenment in serene isolation, true enlightenment, for me, lies not in retreating from the world but in embracing the chaos of life,” he says.
Bombay is, therefore, more than just a home for Jayant; it’s been his spiritual guide.