Review | 5 Stories, Konkani and Kannada anthologies raise the bar for Indian translations

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Two recent anthologies titled 5 Stories, in Konkani and Kannada, are part of a series edited by that relentlessly formidable champion of Indian stories in English translation — Mini Krishnan. She draws up an ace with these two collections — translated by Vidya Pai and Susheela Punitha, respectively. Together, they have raised the bar for translated stories.

An honest, well-respected and simple couple prays for a child, and a son is born to them. The delighted parents indulge the child into adulthood. This son, however, dies in an aeroplane crash, on his way to Kuwait. How would the parents react, do you think? Read Damodar Mauzo’s chilling story with a twist — ‘Cry, Now’. It will stay with you. You are either that parent or you surely know of some such parents.

‘The Ceremonial Bull’ by Jayanti Naik and ‘The Potter’s Kiln’ by Mahabaleshwar Sail exhibit the pain of a well-ordered interdependent community of simple-minded people, entrenched in their traditional structures of employment, caught in transition between forsaking their gods and filling their stomachs.

How can one protest against the powerful when the alternatives are all blocked? Pundalik Naik’s ‘Victory’ plays out the problems of seeking justice through resistance. The lesson, “We have no right to snatch stale bread from someone’s hand unless we have arranged to give them fresh bread,” can be an eye-opener to youth resistance movements propelled more by idealism than a pragmatic Plan B.

The most recent story in this collection is ‘Man of the Forest’ by Prakash Parienkar. Here, we have a neutral space bereft of particularity. This story could well have been written by Naga poet Easterine Kire or any environmentalist with no variation in topography. This story signals the growing erasure of specific regional identities.

Women shoppers take a pause in Mysuru, Karnataka. | Photo Credit: Getty Images

Baluvate Narayana in Vaidehi’s ‘Worlds Within Worlds’ is a freeloader who sponges off everyone around him shamelessly, exploiting their hospitality while pretending to be a person of consequence. His wife Mankaliyamma’s anguish is like that of Dorothea’s who is tied up with Casaubon in George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Such character sketches are rare to find in short stories.

Mogalli Ganesh’s ‘The Spinning Top’ takes a very different route. What begins as a child’s innocent fascination with a spinning top soon spirals into an intense portrayal of life in a Shudra community. Grief to the child is a lost top; to the animal trapped in the pit, it’s a struggle for survival; and for the Dalit community, it is a struggle for dignity. The story’s closing image — of a child clinging to its mother and seeking refuge in the battered woman’s body, “Take me back into your tummy, Avva,” — will leave the reader restless for a long time.

The 1999 Kargil War and an India-Pakistan cricket World Cup final form the charged backdrop against which rumours spread of a Hindu girl eloping with a Muslim boy in Amaresh Nugadoni’s ‘This Heart Longs For More’. Much of the story’s tension emerges from the seemingly ordinary setting of a tea stall, which becomes a gathering place for political debate and a window into how ordinary Hindus and Muslims respond to the anxieties of the moment. The result is a narrative that keeps one riveted.

Going one step further, Bolwar Kunhi (‘Worship’) and International Booker Prize winner Banu Mushtaq (‘Not a Woman’) take us into the heart of the Muslim experience. The role of the jamaat, convenient interpretations of the Koran, the miraculous powers attributed to Auliyas, Sharia traditions, the obligatory mehr reduced to a paltry sum, the misuse of triple talaaq, and ultimately, the corrosive influence of money are all portrayed with non-judgmental honesty in these two stories.

Three cheers to the translators for marauding through English to match Indian rhythms. A mother calls out to her son: “Where are youuu?” The scrubbing of dishes is pata pata, the pouring of well water over one’s head is dala dala, a person grumbles, gona gona. A pig falls into the pit — daddakh. Someone is thrashed with a cane — chateer.

Editor and translator Mini Krishnan | Photo Credit: R. Ragu

Local words are left untranslated: marasinge leaf, namagorate buds, chaddi dost, ahirat, balpa.

Quaint expressions too are retained in the original: “Nazir was talking as if he was deftly drawing out a strand of hair from butter”; “if a wolf falls into a pit, every man will throw a stone at it”; “you must see how big the bedsheet is before you stretch your legs”.

“‘Why do you want to be a brahmin, Manji-gulaganji,’ asked Gundakka, fondly rhyming her name with those shiny red seeds children used as pawns while playing indoor games.” One suspects the translator’s extrapolation here to explain the rhyme.

The Konkani translator’s note is comprehensive — it can be used as a blueprint for other books in this series. The sourcing of stories from magazines like Jaag, Prajavaani, Patrike and Kannada Prabha makes a statement about the value of regional publications. It would have been useful to know how these five stories came to be selected.

Ultimately, it is refreshing to read stories that are unpretentious. The ‘long-shorts’ in this series establish that fiction is indeed subterranean social history.

The reviewer is a Sahitya Akademi translation award winner, and the editor of 250 Years Of Jane Austen: Indian Responses.

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