My book "Daughters of Kerala"

     Madhavikutty was also known as Kamala Das, and Kamala Surayya when she converted to Islam at the age of 65. She is arguably the most important feminist Malayalam writer in the last five decades. Kamala Das is better known outside of Kerala than most other Malayalam writers as she was a prolific writer in both Malayalam and English. She travelled to many countries to read her poems and in 2009 was named “the mother of modern English Indian Poetry” by The Times.


     Madhavikutty came from a family of distinguished writers. She wrote chiefly of love, its betrayal and the resulting anguish. In her autobiography she discussed her search for love inside and outside marriage. “My Story” shocked the readers and set a new milestone for women to write candidly about sexuality. Even her conversion to Islam was part of that search. But again she was disappointed.

     Madhavikutty’s story selected for this book “Sandalwood for the Funeral Pyre” is a unique one. It is about the cremation of the woman of a house, a wife and mother of three grown sons. From the conversation of her sons and their wives while the pyre is burning one can learn about her personal characteristics and how important a role she played in the lives of her husband and sons.

     The discussion about the care of the father is enlightening—how everyone is too busy with their work and social outings to take care of him. Another interesting discussion is about who will inherit the diamond earrings the old lady had.

     The oldest son who feels guilty that he didn’t give her anything while she was alive because she didn’t ask him, consoles himself saying: “When Amma was alive I did not do anything significant for her. But now I realized one wish. I was able to afford sandalwood for her funeral pyre. I am a lucky person. There is no doubt about it”.

     Read the story and draw your own conclusion.

My book Daughters of Kerala

     Karur (Karoor) Neelakandha Pillai was a school teacher who was an eminent short story writer. He wrote simple stories about the poor, but his stories almost always have a happy ending. His first story in the book "The Devil’s Jacket" is unique.

     A 10 year old boy, Kuttappan, has to support himself and his widowed sick mother. He makes a living by transporting commuters from one side of a lake to the other in a row boat that he inherited from his father-- his only inheritance.

     The boy doesn’t even have enough clothes to wear to keep warm on cold mornings. One day one of the passengers forgets a package on his boat. When Kuttappan opens the packet he is happy to find a shirt and a pair of shorts. He tries them on and thinks he looks like a policeman. But his mother insists on him being honest and returning the packet to the rightful owner. Kuttappan leaves the package on the boat where the passengers can see it. The owner has to identify what is in the package.

     After a few days a man comes on the boat and sees the package. He happens to be a rich business man who appreciates the boy’s honesty and wants to reward him in a big way.

     In the second story "Wooden Dolls" a young woman named Nalini is indignant when the census taker suggests she is a dependent. Rather than stay with her alcoholic husband she is back at her mother’s house and does everything that needs to be done in the house. In addition, she makes a living by carving statuettes from left over pieces of wood and selling them—an appropriate way for a member of a carpenter family to earn a living. In the end the census taker puts down her profession as ‘wood carving.’

     The census taker also is an artist and before leaving he gives her a piece of paper on which he had sketched her while they were talking. She is so pleased that she gives him a statuette of Parvathy (Consort of Shiva) in penitential pose.

     By the way, "Wooden Dolls" was staged as a play about six years ago by the South Asian Young Professionals group at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland.

     A big "Thank you" to those who posted comments.

     Web site: http://www.Achammachander.com

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My book "Daughters of Kerala"

Kerala Nuns Saving a Sikh Woman and Her Son

     N.S. Madhavan’s "When Big Trees Fall" is about the turbulent time in Delhi after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. (In a speech given by Rajiv Gandhi after the assassination of his mother, he said, “When big trees fall the earth trembles.”)

     Sectarian violence erupts after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, there is chaos everywhere and the Sikhs are being massacred by the Hindus. A number of them take refuge in the Gurudwara (place of worship) which is guarded by men ready to face the attackers. But they are attacked. Amarjit’s husband and grown son are killed by a man who has a shop next to theirs. He had been trying to buy the shop to expand his business and uses the chaotic occasion to kill the man and his family. But when he pulls Amajit’s hand she bites him hard to release the grip, drags her son and runs. In the darkness of the night they climb through the cracks in the wall and get in side the convent. The nuns give them warm milk, food to eat and a place to sleep. They can hear the motor bikes of the men who followed Amarjit circling the convent and shouting for the woman and boy to be released. The Gurkha gatekeeper locks the gate, chains it and waits inside.

     During the night stones are thrown at the convent which is a retirement home for old nuns who had worked in Delhi and surrounding areas. The arrival of Amarjit and her son seems to have given new energy and a purpose to the old nuns. The people chasing the woman and boy come to the convent and are beating on the gate asking for their release. Everyone knows that the mother and son cannot stay in the convent for long. So the superior, after praying for a long while, comes up with a plan.

     Amarjit is to dress like a nun and the boy whose hair is cut is to lie down in a coffin. The nuns are to take the coffin to the cemetery in an ambulance as if for burial. Once they are in the cemetery, out of site of people, they can go out another way and escape.

     The attackers try to stop them, but a Spanish nun who is in the group speaks to them in Hindi and asks why they are bothering the dead. Her accent and blue eyes didn’t go with the looks of Delhi and the young men leave the ambulance alone and go away. On reaching the cemetery, when no one is interested in them any more, they open the coffin and the boy gets up like a butterfly coming out of the pupa. From there they go to the railway station and get on a train to safety along with a visiting nun who is also leaving Delhi.

     The next day the residents of the convent go back to their old life of waiting for the end and the superior thinks she can feel death in the air that would take place very soon.

     This story was selected to represent the thousands of young Kerala women who become nuns to serve the poor in other parts of India and abroad.

     India edition of “Daughters of Kerala” available from:      www.Rainbowbookpublishers@gmail.com

Web link: http://www.AchammaChander.com

My book "Daughters of Kerala"

Two Young Muslim Women

     There are two stories in “Daughters of Kerala” about young Muslim women whose husbands are away working to make a living. The main character in "Nerchakkottan" (Sacrificial animal), Sulaiyakutty has a pet lamb that she cares for from the time it is born. It is killed for Bakrid, the festival marking the end of the 30 day fast, as it was meant for that. Shortly after that her father dies. Because she is a fatherless child, the elders in the village take a collection to get her married to a man working in the gulf. When his vacation is over the groom goes back to the Gulf, leaving a pregnant Sulaiyakutty. She is not able to handle her life of “Thirty-five months of separation and one month of married life,” as the author puts it. She becomes insane, doesn’t take care of the baby and is brought back to her house without the baby. A letter arrives three days later with the news of the divorce. In the end Sulaiyakutty is found dead after she escapes from the mental asylum her brother has taken her to.

     This is a story about a married woman who lives far away from her husband. They represent the thousands in similar situations because the men go away for two to three years at a stretch to work in the Middle East and elsewhere, leaving the wife to toil in the kitchen and attend to other household chores. Some of these women can get caught in the down swirl of problems arising out of the situation from which they are unable to get out.

     On the other hand, this kind of separation has a positive impact on Ameena in "The Dawn of Enlightenment." She wants to make sure her daughter receives at least a basic education. Ameena has problems because she doesn’t know to read and write. The mail man has to take her hand to get the thumb print instead of her signature on the money order she gets from her husband who is in the Navy. She also has to depend on him to read her husband’s letters to her and write her response to her husband. Ameena wants to make sure that “Kafir wouldn’t touch” her daughter’s hand. For that she sends her daughter to school to learn to read and write.

     The situations are similar in the two stories, but the ways the two women handle them are poles apart.

     India Edition of “Daughters of Kerala” is available from: Rainbowbookpublishers@gmail.com

My book "Daughters of Kerala"

     There are stories in the collection that are unique to Kerala culture. The earliest story written in 1931, “In the Shroud” by Lalithambika Antharjanam seems unreal today, especially the ways in which women were subjugated not only by men but also by what the women believed. After reaching puberty a woman was not to see or be seen by any man other than her husband, while it was customary for an upper-caste Namputhiri to take several women as wives. (Brahmins in Kerala are known as Namputhiris.) A man of sixty taking a young woman of twenty as his third or fourth wife was not uncommon.

     The main reason for such marriages was the family’s inability to provide the customary dowry to marry off girls and the social pressure to get girls married. The men in the family were forced to find someone, just anyone, even an old man who would marry the girl for little or no dowry.

     But the part that was more tragic was what the women believed. They considered their husbands almost as their god and did everything they demanded. A senior wife asks, “He may be old and ugly. But he is her husband, her god for this life. Then why doesn’t she love him and worship him? ” (p.2)

     Lalithambika Antharjanam, was one of the few women who gained entry into the upper caste, male dominated world of Malayalam literature during this time. She could write touching stories about the injustice the women had to face in these homes because she was one of them.

     The Namputhiris followed Manu’s teaching that a woman does not deserve freedom in the house she is born in or the house she marries into. Lalithambika wrote to draw the attention of the reader to the indescribable way these women suffered with no means to control their destiny.

     This practice was changed by the Namputhiri women who were determined to change it, but they could change it only with the help of the men in the community who realized the injustice done to the women. Lalithambika credits her husband for his support and encouragement to express her beliefs fearlessly. Fortunately, twas a time when Kerala was very much involved in movements to change many such social practices. The famous Temple Entry Proclamation by the Maharaja of Travancore, (one of the three geographic units that formed Kerala) Sri Chithirathirunal, was a revolutionary change brought about during this period (allowing low caste people to enter temples to worship.) After India gained independence, laws were passed to prevent many such discriminatory practices.

Achamma Chandersekaran

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My book Daughters of Kerala

      Carole Hayes, my sophomore year English professor, compared the main characters in four stories to Emma in "Madam Bovary"-- "The Lullaby of Dreams,""Rosemary," "A Rest House for Travellers" and "Ghare Baire." The women in these stories live the dull realities of everyday life and no longer in love with their husbands, are looking elsewhere for affection and romance.

       In "Lullaby of Dreams" the lead character, a woman doctor, a business man’s wife and mother of a child, is infatuated with a young college student who is a family friend and dreams of him day and night. One day she tells him that she loves him more than she loves her husband, child and mother. But he says he is sad about their love because it is not free. He leaves the house saying, “If I stay here, snakes will entwine my feet.” That night while she embraced her husband trying to imagine that she was in the arms of her friend,the young man was sleepless and crying into the pillow.

       Rosemary falls for the neighbor, Thampuran, a member of the royal family. He speaks in a sing-song fashion about plants and flowers talking in their own language and how we can hear them if we listen. The day he dies Rosemary thinks, “Today, nature will wear all its ornaments to say farewell to Thampuran.” While she is paying respect to his body she can hear thousands of harmoniously blended sounds coming from somewhere. As she is getting into the jeep to go back, suddenly raindrops fall on the windshield. That makes her think “nature has cooperated fully in Thampuran’s sendoff … She feels like a lover who has realized her love.”

       Malathy in ‘A Rest House for Travellers” feels that she is just her husband’s “housekeeper, nothing more, except for social occasions… when she is an adornment.” Her husband has “more important work” and no time to spend with her. That is the main reason for her to fall in love with Santosh, another guest at the Rest House who pays a great deal of attention to her. But Malathy decides to stay in the marriage for her own reasons. Finally, the husband learns a valuable lesson from his latest research with black monkeys: “To the male monkey nothing is more important than his mate,” he tells Malathy and hopes it is not too late to make up for the past neglect. However, “the sense of guilt and embarrassment in his voice was not sufficient to melt the frost of her detachment.”

       The housewife in "Ghare Baire" (98) has sex with a married man who is a family friend. The double standard of the man comes through loud and clear when he responds, “I’ll kill her,” to the question, “Can you imagine your wife Usha sitting with another man like this?” His image in the mirror was not smiling. May be such things always happened, though no one dared to write about them. But these are stories written in the 80’s and 90’s and writers were no longer reluctant to write on such topics.

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My book Daughters of Kerala

Vaikom Murali
Literary Columnist

An extraordinary translation of Malayalam short stories comes out of Achamma Chandersekaran's magical touch of translation. The great literary tradition of Malayalam which is one of the richest of Indian languages, finds its way into world literature through this re-creation of some excellent short stories. They must be considered as a profound expression of women's predicament presented through a feminine perspective. The stories are beautifully translated without losing the perfume of some of the great writers of Malyalam literature.

Carole Hayes
English Professor (Retired)


Thanks to their adept translator, Achamma Coilparampil Chandersekaran, the stories in "Daughters of Kerala" preserve each author's distinctive voice. At the same time, the collection raises universal questions about the lives of girls and women. The book will make a welcome text in a course in world literature, women's studies, or short fiction. "Daughters of Kerala" will also appeal to the individual reader seeking a book as entertaining as it is informative.

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M.V. Pillai, M.D.

Achamma Chandersekaran's latest work "Daughters of Kerala" is one part an impressive anthology of Kerala women's whirl into the 21st century and another part an artfully distilled essence of the crème de la crème of prose fiction in contemporary Malayalam literature. Portrayed in twenty five lushly crafted and skillfully translated short stories and centering on the trials and tribulations of women caught on the cross purposes at work within families, this literary feat illustrates the cultural evolution of a populace

Gita Bhatia
(Writer)

"Daughters of Kerala" offers a rare insight into the innermost beings of Kerala women and their relationship with men in a context not easily available in the West. Chosen with an open mind from a vast sea of short stories in Malayalam, each story is a brilliant gem that is meant to be enjoyed and treasured, one at a time. I would highly recommend this book for a program in Women's studies and for some deeply satisfying reading.



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My book Daughters of Kerala

Braj Kachru
Author, Professor, Researcher

The collection provides a touching chronicle of the contexts of women's experiences, frustrations, and struggles in the changing social order of that exciting part of India. The vivid translations open a window for non-Malayalam speakers in India and beyond to yet another regional facet of the world of Indian women...

Shashi Tharoor
Diplomat and Author of many books including, “India: From Midnight to Millennium.”

"Daughters of Kerala" is a marvelous collection of first-rate stories, skillfully translated by Achamma Chandersekaran, which marks a welcome addition to the English-speaking world's appreciation of Malayalam literature.

Lyn Richmond
Translator of Geoffrey Chaucer: "The Parliament of Birds"

To immerse one-self in these stories is to be drawn into a strange magic. Part of the strangeness is the juxtaposition of matter-of-fact modernity with a quality of absolute timelessness, arising in part from ancient Hindu mythology but drawing also on a deep-rooted poetic sensibility still un-self-consciously present in the people described here, especially the lovers. And their poetry makes the book sing. The intensity of feeling in these stories is the deeper, perhaps, because of the quietness of their prevailing tone.

Carla Danzinger
Author

DAUGHTERS OF KERALA: 25 SHORT STORIES BY AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS, translated from Malayalam by Achamma Chandersekaran, provides a fascinating read for anyone interested in the art of the short story, international literature, women's studies, or simply learning more about other cultures. Chandersekaran's anthology takes readers to the southwest region of India, where literacy is high and the tradition of short stories--to which women of Kerala have been important contributors--is at least a century old.

Nearly 400,000 women in Kerala work outside their homes. The situation of working women is dealt with in two stories, Fraction (93) and The Riddles in Life (99). In Fraction the wife takes time off from work because she is sick, but she doesn’t get time off from her kitchen duty. Her husband does not do anything to help her in the kitchen, or help their daughter with her homework. The wife is unable to deal with the stress of combining a career with housework and a daughter who needs help with her homework as her husband doesn’t care to help with any of these even when she is sick. In a moment of rage, she commits suicide.


The working woman in Riddles in Life is a doctor. She divorces her husband who is always away on travel. This story is movingly written about by their daughter who is torn between the parents. She loves her father very much but at the same time, is “unable to cross the boundary of her mother’s love.” Children of divorced parents being pulled in different directions is a common occurrence in Western countries. People in many countries will identify with this story. One noteworthy point about this story is that in the eyes of the daughter, there is no malice in all these decisions. The story is written by a young writer who has received awards from the time she was an undergraduate student, now completing her Ph.D in English Literature. Asha Krishnan received the Rajalakshmi Memorial award for this story.

Next Monday and Thursday you will see short reviews of the book . Please send your comments to Achammachander@gmail.com  Website http://www.achammachander.com/