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112 pages

English

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Kali and Ponna s efforts to conceive a child have been in vain. Hounded by the taunts and insinuations of others, all their hopes come to converge on the chariot festival in the temple of Ardhanareeswara, the half-female god. Everything hinges on the one night when rules are relaxed and consensual union between any man and woman is sanctioned. This night could end the couple s suffering and humiliation. But it will also put their marriage to the ultimate test.

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Publié par	Penguin Books Ltd
Date de parution	01 décembre 2014
Nombre de lectures	2
EAN13	9789351185857
Langue	English

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Perumal Murugan

ONE PART WOMAN
Translated from the Tamil by ANIRUDDHAN VASUDEVAN
Contents
About the Author
Also by Perumal Murugan
Praise for the Book
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twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
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twenty-four
twenty-five
twenty-six
twenty-seven
twenty-eight
twenty-nine
thirty
thirty-one
thirty-two
thirty-three
thirty-four
a note on the type
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PENGUIN BOOKS
ONE PART WOMAN
PERUMAL MURUGAN is the star of contemporary Tamil literature, having garnered both critical acclaim and commercial success for his work. An award-winning writer, poet and scholar, he has written several novels, short-story collections, poetry anthologies and works of non-fiction. Some of his novels have been translated into English to immense acclaim, including Seasons of the Palm , which was shortlisted for the Kiriyama Award in 2005, and One Part Woman , his best-known work, which was shortlisted for the Crossword Award and won the prestigious ILF Samanvay Bhasha Samman in 2015. Murugan has also received awards from the Tamil Nadu government as well as from Katha Books.
ANIRUDDHAN VASUDEVAN is a performer, writer and translator. He documents various public health projects and art projects, and is involved in LGBT advocacy work. He is currently a PhD student in anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin, and is also working on his first novel.
Also by Perumal Murugan
Pyre
Murugan is the most accomplished of his generation of Tamil writers Caravan
Saroja and Kumaresan are in love. After a hasty wedding, they arrive in Kumaresan s village, harbouring the dangerous secret that their marriage is an inter-caste one, likely to anger the villagers should they learn of it. Kumaresan is confident that all will be well. He naively believes that after the initial round of curious questions, the inquiries will die down and the couple will be left alone. But nothing is further from the truth. The villagers strongly suspect that Saroja must belong to a di erent caste. It is only a matter of time before their suspicions harden into certainty and, outraged, they set about exacting their revenge.
With spare, powerful prose, Murugan masterfully conjures a terrifying vision of intolerance in this devastating tale of innocent young love pitted against chilling savagery.
Perumal Murugan s voice is distinct . . . [His] characters, dialogues and locales are unerringly drawn and intensely evocative . . . A superb writer Indian Express
[A] great literary chronicler . . . Murugan is at the height of his creative powers The Hindu
Praise for One Part Woman
A superb book in which tenderness, love and desire kindle each other into a conflagration of sexual rapture BAPSI SIDHWA
Perumal Murugan opens up the layers of desire, longing, loss and fulfilment in a relationship with extraordinary sensitivity and surgical precision AMBAI
A fable about sexual passion and social norms, pleasure and the conventions of family and motherhood . . . A lovely rendering of the Tamil BIBLIO
Perumal Murugan turns an intimate and crystalline gaze on a married couple in interior Tamil Nadu. It is a gaze that lays bare the intricacies of their story, culminating in a heart-wrenching denouement that allows no room for apathy . . . One Part Woman is a powerful and insightful rendering of an entire milieu which is certainly still in existence. [Murugan] handles myriad complexities with an enviable sophistication, creating an evocative, even haunting, work . . . Murugan s writing is taut and suspenseful . . . Aniruddhan Vasudevan s translation deserves mention-the language is crisp, retaining local flavour without jarring, and often lyrical THE HINDU BUSINESS LINE
An evocative novel about a childless couple reminds us of the excellence of writing in Indian languages . . . This is a novel of many layers; of richly textured relationships; of raw and resonant dialogues and characters . . . Perumal Murugan s voice is distinct; it is the voice of writing in the Indian languages rich in characters, dialogues and locales that are unerringly drawn and intensely evocative. As the novel moves towards its inevitable climax, tragic yet redemptive, the reader shares in the anguish of the characters caught in a fate beyond their control. It is because a superb writer has drawn us adroitly into the lives of those far removed from our acquaintance INDIAN EXPRESS
Murugan imbues the simple story of a young couple, deeply in love and anxious to have a child, with the complexities of convention, obligation and, ultimately, conviction . . . An engaging story TIME OUT
One Part Woman has the distant romanticism of a gentler, slower, prettier world, but it is infused with a sense of immediacy . . . Murugan intricately examines the effect the pressure to have a child has on [the couple s] relationship . . . One Part Woman is beautifully rooted in its setting. Murugan delights in description and Aniruddhan translates it ably OPEN
Murugan s insights about relationships spread throughout his work like flashes of lightning KALACHUVADU
Praise for Perumal Murugan
Versatile, sensitive to history and conscious of his responsibilities as a writer, Murugan is . . . the most accomplished of his generation of Tamil writers CARAVAN
The Tamil Irvine Welsh GUARDIAN
Powerful . . . lyrical THE HINDU
one
T he portia tree was dense with foliage. If you looked closely, you could see the yellow trumpet-like flowers with their flared mouths, and the drooping, fading red ones with their inviting smiles. Portia flowers always grow more beautiful as they fade. Kali leapt up and plucked one. He never could resist the desire to possess what attracted him. The leaves came ripped, but the flower was intact. Settling down on the cot, he smelled the flower. It had a mild fragrance, that too when held close to the nose. He felt he should have left it on the tree. The sight of the flower on the tree was more beautiful than its scent.
He ran his eyes over the tree. It was he who had planted it there, in the front yard of his father-in-law s home. Before that, whenever he had visited this house, the sight of the bare front yard had hurt his eyes relentlessly. This forced him to remain indoors until the sun went down, and because of his presence, the womenfolk could not carry on their private chatter. So he spoke to his brother-in-law about it.
Wouldn t it be good to have a tree here?
They refuse to have one. They say they need the sun to dry groundnuts and corn. Why don t you try talking to my father?
Kali didn t do anything at the time. However, on his next visit, he brought along a stalk. On the way, he only smiled when Ponnayi said, Why are you lugging this along, maama? She gave him an affectionate punch on his cheek and said, You hardly say anything. All I get is that bewitching smile!
It had been just three months into their marriage, and they refused to stay away from each other even for a little while. They couldn t even resist constantly looking at each other s faces. But that day, when he visited his father-in-law s place, he didn t enter the house. He grabbed a rake and a spade and got started on his work immediately. He found a place to plant the stalk, a spot where it could grow without hindrances and be able to spread its branches in all directions. Even when it was just a stalk, Kali s mind could see the tree it would grow into one day. He could see how it would look ten, twenty years later.
He had got this stalk from the portia tree in his cattle enclosure back home. No one knew when that other tree had been planted. The gigantic spread of that tree was etched in his mind, and he hoped this one too would grow the same way. He imagined how the front yard would look when the tree spread its branches over it. Even while planting it, he focused on the pleasure of being able to lie in its cool shade some day. No one objected to the new son-in-law s fancies.
Even before the cow-dung bandage at the end of the stalk dried, shoots started sprouting. There was now an obligation to protect the tree that the son-in-law had planted. Afraid that she would forget to water the tree amidst all her chores, his mother-in-law started washing dishes right under the tree. She also kept a big pot of water there for people to wash their hands and feet when they came back from somewhere. So the space under the tree was always wet. And whenever Kali visited, that was the first spot he went to, making note of the tree s growth.
Your son-in-law comes here only to make sure we re taking good care of his dowry!
His father-in-law s teasing became a regular feature. The tree was called the son-in-law s dowry . Just as he was never called by his name, neither was his tree. In just one year, it grew so tall that one could stand to full height under the new branches. After all, it had come from another tree that had withstood the vagaries of time. The next year, there were flowers. And then fruits.
Twelve years went by in a flash; the tree kept growing and spreading every year. Now ten cots could lie in its shade. It didn t shed much, but when it did, his mother-in-law would complain, This is an endless task-this sweeping, cleaning and taking care of my son-in-law s dowry! His father-in-law delighted at the sight of the compost pits getting filled with the tree s leaves. The tree gave as much manure as a cow did, and it was definitely enough for one enclosure. What the son-in-law had given them was certainly a gift!
In the past two years or so, when Kali did not visit, the arms of the tree stretched towards the sky. Only when a tree is small can you notice its growth. When it is bigger, it continues to grow, but imperceptibly. Kali, however, could always size up a tree. For instance, he could now