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| Vol. 4, Issue 5 May 2012 |
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Fiction & Poetry |
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Fiction |
But Why Shouldn’t the Baindla Woman Ask for Her Land?
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Published : 1 February 2012 |
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ABOUT THE STORY From Fakir Mohan Senapati’s Six Acres and a Third to Rahi Masoom Raza’s Adha Gaon and Aravind Adiga’s Last Man In Tower, there runs a powerful current in Indian fiction that gives us a narrative universe through the depiction of conflict over land ownership. In this story by the Telugu writer Gogu Shyamala, we are presented with a marvellously specific and layered village world from the Tandur region of western Telangana. The protagonist, the combative and outspoken low-caste soothsayer Saayamma, is variously called Baindla Saayamma or Erpula Saayamma, the first prefix denoting her caste group, the second her social function. Shyamala’s story, about Saayamma’s battle to recover her ancestral land from a high-caste man, produces in a few pages a complex portrait of the power structures and religious imagination of the village as well as Saayamma’s own unforgettable mind, miseries and menace.
Even to Telugu readers, Shyamala’s language is unconventional, rooted in a dialect spoken by Dalits in Tandur. Shyamala’s translator chooses not to render her extraordinarily nuanced and particular vocabulary into a more generic and simplifying English, thereby preserving the specificity of the story’s social world, one that we are invited to understand on its own local terms. As the inventive and challenging wordplay (“dumbcowing”, “chuckmuckery”) of the first two books of Amitav Ghosh’s recent Ibis Trilogy show us, one of the ways in which Indian fiction is distinctive is in the massive diversity of its language universes and worldviews. Layers of these worlds must persist even in translation if we, Indian readers in English, are at all to be taken out of the comfort zone of our own concepts and worldview—one of the reasons why we go to fiction in the first place. With their wealth of concrete details, puckish humour and agility of narrative technique, Shyamala’s stories make a clean break with an older tradition of Dalit writing about caste oppression, and mark the arrival of a major new voice in Indian literature. This story is taken from her book of stories, Father May Be an Elephant, and Mother Only a Small Basket, But..., published this month by Navayana.
WHEREVER PEOPLE GATHERED or met in the wadas of the village, they asked, “Why does the dora keep saying the baindla woman banged her fist on the table? She didn’t do it for nothing. It was only to ask for her land.”
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T WAS STILL DARK, the light just a glimmer. You couldn’t make out who was coming towards you. The women were busy sweeping their courtyards and coating the floor with cow-dung slurry. The men went ‘herre! herre!’, prodding the cattle awake while they cleaned out the sheds. Others prepared to harness the oxen and assemble the ploughs. One by one the |
women drifted towards the well carrying their pots for water.
Bantu Pentappa came up running pell-mell, holding up the servant staff.
“What’s the big hurry, Pentappa? You’re running as if your life depends on it. You’ll trip on stones in the dark and fall,” chided Madiga Dunnolla Narsamma.
“Amma, I’ve to give this message to the sarpanch and rush off,” Pentappa said without breaking stride. “Is Sarpanch Balappa awake? Please wake him up.”
“What are you saying? Do you imagine that he is still curled up and sleeping?” the sarpanch’s wife retorted.
“Ya, ya, I know he is already busy ploughing the fields! But tell me, is he up?”
“He’s gone to the fields with the farm-servant to start the ploughing.” Saying this, she got busy with the decorative skirting she was creating on her front wall.
“I couldn’t catch him despite coming so early. Amma, please send one of the children to tell him that the dora wants him, and to come fast. Tell him I came personally. I still have to tell the caste elders.” Pentappa wound up his turban again so that it sat more tightly round his head and hastened off.
Morning had still not fully broken when, on hearing from ‘Bantu’ Pentappa, the caste elders along with the sarpanch gathered at the dora’s house. They all sat in their places waiting for him.
Finally, by noon, when the sun was high, the dora came out holding the tail of his lungi in one hand. As if on cue, the other big men—Krishna Reddy Patel, Srinivas Rao Pantulu, Narasimha Reddy and Anantha Reddy Patel—entered.
All the seated elders stood up, removed their turbans, tucked them under their arms and paid obeisance with folded hands. The dora and the patels then sat on the chairs placed a few feet away.
The dora, Narender Reddy, began speaking: “Orey Saiga, Yelliga, Malliga, Naga—listen carefully. Let me tell you what happened last night. The goddess Ooradamma appeared in my dream and said, ‘I’ll destroy the village. I’ll create havoc. If the village is to prosper, I have to prosper. I want a sacrifice. My sisters Mysamma, Pochamma, Raktamysamma, Bangaramma, Eedamma—they are all famished. You have to satisfy them with a gift of seven he-goats. Otherwise I will bring down a pox on your house, and everyone in your family will die a painful death.’ She didn’t allow me a wink of sleep the whole night. What shall we do?”
“Let us call the erpula woman, the baindla man and Pothuraju Sayigadu, and consult them. We should make sure that, somehow or the other, we conduct the festival this year and make sacrifices to please the Goddess,” said Srinivas Rao Panthulu.
The dora ordered ‘Bantu’ Pentappa, “Go, get the erpula woman first. Let’s see what she has to say about when it should be held. Hurry!”
The servant hurried off. He had only gone a little distance when he came across some friends.
Looking important, Pentappa said to them, “Orey, Ooradamma came into the patel’s dreams last night and told him to hold a jatra in the village … or else! So I think we’re going to have the Ooradamma festival this year. They’ve told me to go fetch Baindla Saayamma. That’s where I am headed.”
He got to Baindla Saayamma’s house and said, “Saayamma, the patel has asked you to come. I don’t know why.”
“This does not happen often. Why’s he asking for me? Don’t try to tell me you’ve come without knowing why. You must know something. Tell me! He won’t eat you up if you do. I’ll come only if you tell me…. I’m busy right now. Go away,” Saayamma said decisively.
“What do I know, Amma? Do they tell me everything? It seems Ooradamma appeared in his dreams. We have to hold the jatra and he asked me to fetch you. This is what I learnt and I don’t know anything more.”
“You could have told me all this right at the beginning. Okay, let’s go. Yelluga, bring brother Ramsendra along to the patel’s house,” Saayamma said and walked out of the courtyard.
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REETINGS, PATEL. You’ve thought of me after a long time.” |
“Saayamma, when did we ever forget you? You people have been conducting the festival since your grandfather’s time. During my grandfather’s time, your grandmother did it. It was the same during my father’s time. And so it continues. Come, sit down. Have your brothers come? Did you call them?” asked the patel.
“Yes, I did. Look, they have arrived,” said Saayamma.
“Is it enough if your brothers come? Where are the palodu, edurupalodu and avathalodu? Don’t you have to call them as well?”
“What’s the problem, Patel? Send for them if you want them.”
“Arrey! Go tell that pali-baindla fellow also to come.”
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Readers' Comments |
Total Comments
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Belinda
10 March 2012
11:36 PM
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I'm stopping by from Coming Down the Mountain, Karen Jones Gowen's blog. It's nice to meet you! Thanks for the iverew. I've heard mixed things about The Forest of Hands and Teeth, but I think I might pick it up if I see it in the library, just to find out what it's like.
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R.Vasundhara Devi
28 February 2012
08:55 AM
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Sashikumar's translation style highlights the meticulously detailed setting in the story. A translator to
be proud of for Telugu writers.
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