கூடு

எழுத்தாளர் அம்பை அவர்களின் விமர்சனக்கட்டுரை 

Life and Forests, Rivers and Hoopoe Birds

Title: Koodu&PiraKadhaigal(Nest& Other Stories)

Author: Kalaiselvi Publisher: Yaavarum Publishers, ChennaiYear: 2021

No. of Pages: 160 Price: Rs.190 

This is the fifth short story collection of Kalaiselvi whose stories delve deep into the inner minds of people to bring out the complex lives they live through spoken words and through silences. Taking the stories on non-linear paths often through forests which become a metaphor in her stories to depict the unpredictability and complexity of human relationships, Kalaiselvi has arrived at a unique style of storytelling. Many of her stories end with hidden doors for the readers to go through and see beyond the stories.  This sixth collection of stories is no exception. 

In her very short preface for this collection, Kalaiselvi talks about how stories happen to her.  She says, “When you read something, somewhere or do something, like a small stroke of lightning one’s heart softens and such softenings become stories. The forests without much human crowding melt the heart more.”   And she says that water also fascinates her as something that represents the impermanence of life and the endless nature of life. The stories in this collection very clearly reveal her fascination with both forests and water, especially the Ganges.

This first story called “Koodu” (Nest) sets the tone and the pace of the other stories some of which revolve around the forest and others around water bodies. The forest dwellers being thrown out of the forests that belong to them along with the animals that become targets of greedy officials who while claiming to  care and protect the forests exploit the forests, is the theme of the first story. Those who really want to save the forests become extremists who have to be imprisoned. Kaliselvi weaves this story beautifully taking it through visuals of pregnant Sambardeers saved by the forest dwellers, female hoopoe birds on the terminalia trees building nests around themselves to lay eggs being fed by the male hoopoe birds, and animals that live in the forests in harmony with the human dwellers.  The story ends with the father of the person considered an extremist in prison being given the death penalty thinking of the female hoopoe bird that would break its nest and come out to more chirping and love. His own son he thinks would become part of the forest mingling with the fragrance of its flowers, chatting with the black birds in the crevices of the rocksor get dissolved in the sawdust arising when trees are cut. (“Koodu” (Nest).

There are also forest dwellers,who in exchange for exotic food like parathas and similar food get dragged into creating agricultural fields out of forests and cutting forest trees led by a person who lures them into it. (“Kumki” (Trained Elephant). The forest also figures in other ways in stories. It is a place where a person who is a much-loved postman who distributes letters in the forest villages can hide his secret relationship. It is also a place where his son wanders to find his father to inform him of the death of  the mother only to realise inadvertently that the father always spent a longer time distributing the letters in the forest area than at home. (“Pattuvada” (Distribution). The forest provides a mental refuge to many. A woman caught in family politics is able to think that the metaphorical forest that is limitless will always be there for her as her refuge.  (“Annai” (Mother). Along with exploitation of the wealth of the forest there is also the exploitation of the forest women which is indicated in the stories but in the story “Muthubommu” it climaxes into a goddess myth. A minor girl whose spirit is appeased by the parents secretly, is the one who is sexually exploited and killed by a rich old man who has occupied the forest land to build a guest house. She appears as a spirit to kill him and later his son who comes to the same area to shoot a film. 

The Ganges and its surroundings provide the space and the opportunity for self-reflection and relief for both women and men who are able to understand the complexities of familial politics and relationships on the banks of the Ganges. (“Neerosai” (The Sound of Water), “Mayakkannan”(The Magical Krishna). Even a much decried destitute woman on the shore of a river is able to retain her sensitivity and move away from violence and cruelty holding on to her pet dog (Vaarppukal (Moulds).A story that is set in the times of the freedom movement in Bengal that is about a relationship between a young widow and a south Indian man who has come there with no plans but has made himself one among them and about how men who talk great politics are also exploiters of women is also set in the marshy lands of a village by the lake.  The widow lies dead in the depths of the marshy land with the incriminating evidence of a wooden slipper of a person he respects caught in the slippery sand nearby, both not easily visible. (“Thanganodigal” (Golden Moments).The story of a wife thrown out of her home by a wayward husband does not happen by a water body but is literally drenched in water for throughout the story there is incessant rain like the rain in which she stood outside her home when she was thrown out by the husband, mother-in-law and his second wife. (“Minnal” (Lightning).

Then there are meetings of two acquaintances that happen by the steps of a dry water body. Its dryness is akin to the dryness of their lives. There are things about their lives that connect them but their meetings are accidents, their conversation  even when personal details are exchanged, hang loose and finally like the dried up water body where final rites are performed by the man, their relationship too is a dried up river with no direction to flow. When the woman finally gets into the bus after an accidental meeting, the noise around muffles her voice when she tells him where she is headed to after her mother’s death. (Padithurai(Steps Leading to the Pond)

There are some unusual stories where stereotypes of the sacrificing, brimming-with-love mothers are broken and they feel like cold sharp knives entering one’s body. In the “Annai” story, for example, a girl who has rejected an alliance with a diabetic person, not because he is diabetic but because she is involved with someone else, is treated as an outcaste by the family abandoned to live her life on her own because the love she depended on turned out to be as rootless as a water bubble. Her mother is no support to her in this emotional abandonment because her own security lies with her sons. The mother dies.  The daughter’s wailing for the dead mother who in her final days had been bed ridden with paralysis, fills her mind with a relief and joy that only she can understand.

In the “Pattampoochi” (Butterfly) story this disconnect with the mother is like a deep gorge between the mother and daughter and she can overcome it only by developing wings like a butterfly and become light and fly away. The daughter lives with her parents. The family has faced the traumatic death of an elder daughter who has burnt herself to death. Her complaints to her parents about a cruel mother-in-law only bring advice to adjust and manage. Now the elder sister’s husband is asking for the hand of the younger one. It is not that the younger daughter does not have dreams about marriage and physical desires. But she has also seen a sister die. Her parents are discussing how to raise the topic with her. The mother suddenly starts talking about how it was not entirely the fault of the son-in-aw and how her own daughter was a bit impatient and intolerant and how she brought the violent death upon herself. It is a moment of great shock when a mother reveals her true nature as someone who is willing to offer her younger daughter to a person who had instigated her elder daughter’s violent death. The daughter can feel the wings of the butterfly she used to become during school days. And she wills to resist her parents.

Then there is the young mother whose husband is constantly going in and out of prison probably for his political activities in the story “Mudivili” (Endless) Her school-going son disappears during one of those times when the husband is in prison and she is on night duty as she is forced to work to eke out a living. In the process she is also attracted to someone else. Thereis no news of her son, the husband in prison is blaming her of being careless and her new friend calls her while she is at the bus stop. She is young; she needs a man in her life; she loves her son; but he is also the spit image of the father in prison and the father in prison is not a particularly loving husband. He does not assure her of anything, not even love even though theirs was a marriage of their choice. Caught up in all this is the young woman who is the mother.

Apart from forests and water bodies, exotic birds also appear in Kalaiselvi’s stories in urban areas. One such bird is thecockatiel bird that is the loving pet of a woman who is caught in the pandemic times. No Tamil reader would have heard of this bird. Nor have I. I had to look it up and check if people have them as pets inTamil Nadu and found out that they do! The story is about a woman on her own whose husband is stranded in Bangalore due to the lockdown. The female cockatiel bird strangely named Sanju is her only companion. She arranges for her husband to stay with a school-mate of hers in Bangalore whose husband is stranded abroad. The story ends with the usual twist: the husband is happy with the friend and not too eager to come back and she is left with the cockatiel bird which calls out to her. (“Poochendu” (Bouquet)

Kalaiselvi has also constructed an interesting story around the great train robbery of RBI boxes that happened in the train from Salem to Chennai. It is about a young man who dreams of living a different life with riches who joins others to do the robbery. The twist is that the five hundred and thousand rupee notes worth lakhs  stolen are declared invalid the day after the robbery due to demonetisation. The actual robbery happened in August 2016 but Kalaiselvi has taken the liberty to make it happen a day before in November 2016 when the demonetisation and the invalidity of the currency notes of these denominations was announced. (“Kanavu”(Dream).

The women in Kaliselvi’s s stories are vulnerable and they assert themselves in different ways and also succumb in different ways. The men in her stories are not always absolute villains but very often they are incapable of being good husbands and good lovers—not even good brothers. They are weak-willed and directionless but also manipulators and exploiters in general terms. She does not paint them in clear black strokes but black is a colour she keeps close to her when it comes to men. The women, despite being in very different circumstances and very different contexts, many of them unenviable and gloomy, come out with personalities that are throbbing with life. They are constantly confronting and dealing with life in ways known to them. The stories don’t tell us that they win always but they are there even if they appear as a stroke of lighting like Meenal in the “Minnal” story. Set against some breathtaking descriptions of the forests and the Ganges these stories stand firm like mountainsand run deep like the Ganges.

—C S Lakshmi