Where the Rain is Born , livre ebook

Penguin Books Ltd

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

175 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

A combination of essays, short stories, poems and extracts from published works in both English and Malayalam, this anthology affords a tantalizing glimpse into the rich and varied layers of experience that Kerala has to offer.

Sujets

Humanities

Informations

Publié par	Penguin Books Ltd
Date de parution	05 décembre 2002
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789351183501
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Edited by Anita Nair

WHERE THE RAIN IS BORN
WRITINGS ABOUT KERALA
Contents
Introduction
Anita Nair
1. The corridor
Balachandran Chullikkad
2. Chasing the monsoon
Alexander Frater
3. Charlis and I
Shashi Tharoor
4. Marthanda Varma
C.V. Raman Pillai
5. The village before time
V.K. Madhavan Kutty
6. Chemmeen
Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai
7. Grandmother s funeral
Jeet Thayil
8. In search of doubting Thomas
William Dalrymple
9. The blue light
Vaikom Muhammad Basheer
10. Fool s paradise?
Ammu Joseph
11. Where everything is different
Abu Abraham
12. The first lessons
O.V. Vijayan
13. Butter chicken in Ludhiana
Pankaj Mishra
14. The expanse of imagination
Jayanth Kodkani
15. Karkitakam
M.T. Vasudevan Nair
16. The voice
Suresh Menon
17. Mattancheri in Manhattan
Ayyappa Panikker
18. The moor s last sigh
Salman Rushdie
19. Sesame seeds, flowers, water
Lalithambika Antherjanam
20. The garden of the antlions
Paul Zacharia
21. Footballer
Ravi Menon
22. On the banks of the Mayyazhi
M. Mukundan
22. The power of one
Bill Aitken
24. God s own country
Arundhati Roy
25. Hangman s journal
Shashi Warrier
26. Those were the daze
Shreekumar Varma
27. Ancient promises
Jaishree Misra
28. The thief of memories
Vijay Nambisan
29. The mountain that was as flat as a football field on the top
Anita Nair
30. Stalinist and Indian: E.M.S. Namboodiripad
Ramachandra Guha
31. The bonsai tree
David Davidar
32. Mundu, meesha, kumbha, koda: The sartorial splendour of the Malayali male
Geeta Doctor
33. The town they come from
C.P. Surendran
34. The swamp
Kamala Das
Notes on contributors
Copyright acknowledgements
Footnotes
Karkitakam
The garden of the antlions
Follow Penguin
Copyright Page
Introduction: Making Do
Anita Nair
This much is certain: it is impossible to get two people in Kerala to agree upon anything. Give them a subject-nuclear weapons, the American Presidential elections, earthquakes, Maxim Gorky, or the family next door and they will argue about it with as much acumen and aplomb as any star attorney in a TV soap would. And yet, bring up the principle of make do and everyone will hasten to agree that it is the only way to survive Kerala. Make do is the deity everyone worships. Make do is the reason why the average Malayali goes through life convinced that he is the liveliest, shrewdest and most intelligent of all Indians. This despite the high rate of lunatics and suicides. Make do is just about the only thing a Malayali does with little rancour or debate.
Each time I go home to a little village called Mundakotukurussi in Kerala, this business of make do confronts me with a sly giggle, starting with the jeep that jumps and leaps, screeches and roars in turns as it crunches up miles between the railway station and my ancestral home. If there was a road once, it exists in the memories of the residents of the village as a few mounds of gravel patched with tar. Right now, they have learnt to make do with a well-trodden path wide enough for a jeep to negotiate and navigate through.
How omnipresent the principle of make do really is I discovered on my last trip home. When I reach my parents house, it is to discover that the power is off. The level in the water tank is low. Around the house are clusters of giant plastic drums and traditional bronze vessels. This being the month of October, when the power fails, the rains have been known to oblige. I take a deep breath and look around me. Nowhere else in the world have I seen so many hues of green. The velvety green of the moss on the wall. The deep green of the hibiscus bush. The dappled green of the jackfruit. The jade green of the paddy Leaves. Parakeet s wings. Tree frogs. The opaque green of silence. In the evening, darkness will run amok on this canvas of green and it will be time to visit the temple where make do reigns supreme. Muthasikavu or the grandma s grove is a little shrine edging the village. My grandfather re-built the broken down temple. Since none of the idol-makers could comprehend what it was he wanted hewn out of stone or fashioned in metal, he set up a sandalwood pedestal and made do. In the Muthasikavu, there is no deity. Only a lamp that glows from within the sanctum sanctorum. You make do with what your imagination can conjure up and that is the face of divinity. In this village that has neither a guardian deity nor a regular place of worship, they have learnt to make do with this family shrine. And so when they require divine intervention, they make their request to the old lady of the grove. The drummers begin to tune their instruments in preparation for the Velluchapad. The oracle is a tall lean man with gaunt cheekbones and eyes that burn. His hair is wet and straggly after the ritual bath and hangs to his shoulders. He walks into the temple with giant strides and breaks into a guttural scream every few minutes. The drumbeats drown all thought and the Velluchapad begins to dance. As abruptly as the dance began, it ends and the Velluchapad begins to run, circling the temple. His body trembles and he flicks his wet hair with a toss of his hand as if to signal that now he is possessed by the force of the temple. Sometimes the divine power refuses to let go of the Velluchapad and then he begins to slash his head till blood drips down his nose. Slowly his body loosens and the clenched-in look on his face dissipates. Being a Velluchapad, I decide, takes a lot of making do. It can t be easy being a repository of divinity; pitching yourself into a state of nervous energy, cutting your head open to appease a savage god; all to keep a family fed and clothed. There is enormous prestige attached to the position but these days, Velluchapads have few rituals to officiate at and hence have to make do with alternate sources of income. This one is an electrician s assistant by day.
I trudge the narrow path back home. The power goes off. It comes back in a minute and then goes off again. On and off, on and off. Three times is a signal to indicate that the power won t be switched on till next morning. Little lanterns shaped like glass eggs light up rooms. In more affluent homes, the emergency light comes on. There are no harsh surprises, none of the not-knowing-what-to-do. Palm leaf fans and mosquito nets; transistor radios that will bring the world into the homes even if the TV can t; candles in saucers and generators. With these the village will make do till morning or whatever time the power chooses to return.
I sit in the veranda and watch the rainfall. A frog leaps joyous with wetness. A baby scorpion scuttles out; flooded out of its dry home, it seeks refuge in a crack in the floor. In the morning, coconut clusters that would have sagged from the assault and battery of the storm will be propped up and tied. Rotten plantain trees will be uprooted and new ones planted. The land will be repaired. Nature that kills will also heal. And perhaps it is based on this seminal knowledge that the principle of make do thrives. Kerala when offered to the world is a package wrought of colour, traditions, dainty foods, coconut lined lagoons and marvellous beaches, where green and light, 100% literacy and ayurveda, boats and elephants, all find their place. God s own country, the brochures tell you. If you ve been there, you ve been to paradise, they cajole.
What of the total lack of industry, high unemployment, a competitive and conspicuous consumerism, bureaucracy, corruption, or the stifling conservative attitudes, the average Malayali asks. Does the world really know what Kerala is all about? Only if you have lived here will you understand, I am told again and again. As I collated material for this anthology, it is this I sought. Writers who have a congenital craving to want to read between lines and see beyond what is on display. To probe beyond the surface and tap into the seams of everyday. To shrug aside recycled nostalgia and to see Kerala for what it truly is. Voices that haven t succumbed to the sheer beauty of Kerala and who have been able to decipher, if not appreciate, the conundrum that Kerala is. A repertoire of voices that either in English or in Malayalam, in essays, fiction and poetry, have made definite forays into understanding Kerala.
The Corridor
Balachandran Chullikkad
On the cold floor of the
corridor
poems like headless bodies
smeared in blood and phlegm
lie scattered.
Ants come in hordes
and drag them away
to store as food
for dreamless winters.
Once in a while
The tired steps of a
Death-song
Climb up the stairs
When darkness and sorrow
Fill the corridor.
Inside a room
the bleeding heart of a
gramophone
groans with pain,
a love-lorn Saigal
on wings wet with liquor
wafts along the corridor
like a delirium-dazed dream.
From the bath shower
the sad sound of a violin
overflows like a blue river
carrying the abandoned body
of summer.
A drunk shadow
comes walking
along the corridor
with faltering steps,
knocks at every door and
calls,
his own door has shut behind
him, shut for ever
as eyelids in death.
-Translated from the Malayalam by N. Kunju
R. Prasanna Venkatesh/Wilderfile
Chasing the monsoon
Alexander Frater
This extract is taken from Chasing the Monsoon , published by Penguin Books India.
2 JUNE
The wind woke me before dawn. It came from the south-west with a curious singing note, steady and melodic. A deeper accompaniment was discernible in the background which, at first, I took to be breaking seas. Thinking they were breaking outside my window I went to investigate but found only the wild thrashing of coconut palms.
I returned to bed but couldn t sleep. The monsoon seemed to be on its way and my journey in its company could commence. The fact that it had finally made its move was one worry less, but new doubts began to assail me over the travel arrangement