Category: Kannada

A knock at the door: Sakina’s Kiss by Vivek Shanbhag

Kannada author Vivek Shanbhag’s eagerly anticipated new novel opens with the statement: “There are no coincidences, only unseen chains of consequences.” It is a random quote that his middle-aged protagonist once scribbled down for future reference, accidently recovered during a search for something else altogether. Inspired by his finding, he rushes out to the kitchen to share it with his wife who is much too busy with dinner preparation to entertain his interruption. He is fully aware of this but intends to impose on her attention regardless when he is, in turn, interrupted by a knock at the door. That unexpected intrusion will mark the advent of a series of events that threaten to overturn Venkat’s comfortable complacency and not once over the following days will he heed the wisdom he was about to share with his wife on that fateful night.

As with Ghachar Ghochar, the widely acclaimed novella that, in English translation, introduced Shanbhag to a wide audience within and beyond India, Sakina’s Kiss also explores the impact of shifting dynamics within families, and is narrated by a man who is unable, perhaps unwilling, to understand the women in his life. But this time the cracks that threaten familial peace and security run along political, gendered, and generational fault lines and, although uncertain outside forces come into play, Shanbhag again resists any neat resolutions to the mysteries that arise.

Our hero is Venkat. Born and raised in a small rural community he comes to the big city somewhat conscious of his origins, and through his engineering studies and on into his career he works to cultivate the confident, sophisticated manner he wishes to project. He enters the workforce at a time when the necessity of dealing with foreign clients meant that offices tended to be places where Western styles and tastes were favoured and traditional Indian social factors such as caste advantages were publicly downplayed. When the insecure young manager happens to encounter a man whom he begins to see as a kind of secular guru, he is inspired to adopt a steady diet of self-help books as a roadmap to the life he hopes to craft for himself.

And, Venkat does achieve a respectable degree of professional and financial success but, as his narrative reveals, there is an underlying insecurity despite his expressed self-confidence. His wife, Viji, by contrast, appears to be the more rational, empathetic partner in their relationship even though we only see or hear her perspectives through Venkat’s report and, by the time this story opens, the couple has long since drifted into a rather distanced coexistence. When, early on, he launches into a rather detailed account of their arranged meeting, courtship and honeymoon, his descriptions are so oddly matter-of-fact and one-sided that it’s little wonder their marriage is strained decades later. She is also a successful professional and their combined incomes allowed them to purchase a decent two-bedroom apartment in Bengaluru where they still live with their adult child, a daughter who is now twenty-two and working toward an arts degree at university, much to her father’s dismay. He had, of course, favoured the sciences, but Rekha is a free-thinking, rather rebellious young woman. It is primarily around her that the troubling events at the heart of this novel revolve.

When two young men claiming to be friends of Rekha’s appear at the door desperate to reach her, Venkat explains that she is out in his home village, staying with her great uncle in a location where there is no landline or cell signal available and that they will have to wait until she calls to check in before their message can be passed on. The following day, a Sunday, the same young men return and when they receive the same response from Venkat, they leave and send in a couple of thugs to impress upon him the urgency of their need to contact his daughter. A strange story about two rival gangs, one led by the publisher of a sensational tabloid, the other led by the former owner of a poultry shop unfolds and somehow, in the middle of it, it appears that their sons are both smitten with Rekha who, curiously, is never mentioned by name. None of it makes any sense, but the messengers definitely look unsavoury. Neither Venkat nor Viji know what to make of it all, but when, on Monday, they learn that Rekha apparently left the village on the bus to Bengaluru on Saturday night, panic sets in.

Venkat’s narrative alternates between an ongoing account of current events and chapters that attempt to fill in the background, as he tries to explain and make sense of his marriage’s evolution, his daughter’s increasing radicalization, and the strange history of his politically active uncle Ramana. Buried family secrets and complicated levels of willful blindness and stubborn pride cloud his observations and limit his insight. He seems especially frightened of anyone who expresses individualistic or idealistic goals. For example, when Rekha becomes enamoured with the ideas her college English teacher espouses—“patriarchy, the myth of sexual purity, the shackles of marriage and so on”—Venkat responds defensively. Upon learning that this admired teacher secretly smokes on campus:

I began to criticize all smokers so I could ridicule him indirectly. I suppose I was trying to show that my contempt for Surendran was not without reason. This was a strange kind of envy. Or fear. Or something. Along with the feeling Rekha was escaping my orbit was the restlessness brought about by her infatuation with the words and ideas of this fool.

He makes a vain effort to expand his own world view to little avail. His fears only fuel his continued efforts to assert his role as the “man of the house.” This naturally causes his daughter to become even more defiant towards him while pushing her closer to her mother. That gulf only continues to grow.

There are many loose threads and potentially explosive elements in this novel, but with a narrator who is unable to step back and attempt to see the big picture, a number of “what ifs” remain just out of sight. Venkat comes close at times to wondering if he could or should have done something more with respect to the various dilemmas he has faced, yet, for all his self-help book consumption, a personal awakening eludes him. Even more critically, his fragile masculinity will not allow it. Unable to navigate a changing social and political terrain, he now finds himself excluded from his wife and daughter’s confidence and haplessly sliding into a potentially dangerous situation.

Sakina’s Kiss is, again like Ghachar Ghochar, a deceptively easy read with an unsettling undercurrent that leaves more questions than answers. Shanbhag excels at creating ordinary male characters who are unable or unwilling to fully appreciate shifting social dynamics or their role in them. As such, his narrators end up granting the women in their lives an insight that they are at a loss to understand. They find themselves in situations that are at once funny and tragic—how they will manage in the end is uncertain. In a way, his first two translated titles remind me of the work of South African writer Ivan Vladislavić who has perfected the myopic middle class male character who finds himself in over his head in a world that is changing around him.

Sakina’s Kiss by Vivek Shanbhag is translated from the Kannada by Srinath Perur and published by Penguin Random House India.

The Best Translated Book Award 2018: Some reflections about the fiction and poetry nominees

In advance of the announcement of this year’s BTBA finalists for fiction and poetry, I wanted to share a few thoughts about the nominated titles I have had a chance to read. I read almost half of the poetry long list and almost six of the 25 fiction titles—I say “almost” because there is a title on each side that I have not yet finished. I don’t have posted reviews for all, but I do have a few favourites going forward.

What I love about this award is that it invariably draws my attention to a few titles that I might never have encountered and, because it is based on titles released in the US, I can generally get my hands on the books that interest me. This year, because I turned my focus to poetry, the experience has been especially rewarding. Here are the books I’ve read, in whole or in part, with links to the reviews I wrote (where applicable) and some thoughts about the books read and not yet reviewed:

Fiction:

Bergeners by Tomas Espedal, translated from the Norwegian by James Anderson (Norway, Seagull Books)

I have not quite finished this book, and therefore cannot judge it fully. I am pleased to see it on the list; it’s an interesting blend of genre and so far I am enjoying it. However, as it is my first experience with Espedal, I have no context to place it against.

I Am the Brother of XX by Fleur Jaeggy, translated from the Italian by Gini Alhadeff (Switzerland, New Directions)

Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag, translated from the Kannada by Srinath Perur (India, Penguin)

 The Iliac Crest by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker (Mexico, Feminist Press)

My Heart Hemmed In by Marie NDiaye, translated from the French by Jordan Stump (France, Two Lines Press)

Old Rendering Plant by Wolfgang Hilbig, translated from the German by Isabel Fargo Cole (Germany, Two Lines Press) Also see here.

Hands down this is my favourite title of all that I have read, a book that I absolutely adore. Above I have linked the argument in its favour that I wrote for the Three Percent site. I would have to say that this and My Heart Hemmed In are two books I really love and hope make the cut. Both, it happens, are from the same publisher, in this case Two Lines Press—a circumstance echoed on the poetry side of the equation.

*

Poetry:
Because this is where I spent most of my energies, this is where my attention will focus.

Paraguayan Sea by Wilson Bueno, translated from the Portunhol and Guarani to Frenglish and Guarani by Erin Moore (Brazil, Nightboat Books)

Raining. Winter wet pluries of southern hemispheric June in the beach town. Dense fog, tick, a sort of paste of days when the rains start to soak even gardens and streets. An evocation of fairies through the windows: all marrying winter, leurs sombreros s’embracent in an orgy of wet leaves. I swear.

I have not yet finished this most unusual book—an extended prose poem that employs a delicious blend of languages to tell a strange narrative tale. Very intriguing, it would be good to see it make the cut.

Hackers by Aase Berg, translated from the Swedish by Johannes Goransson (Sweden, Black Ocean Press)

I am
inside you
Where nobody expected
Looneysingapore
Hovered down through
The Phillipine
storm

cat-soft
toxoplasma
schizosex

Endorphoria
never kills
its host world

Of the poetry I read, this book was the least successful for me. The imagery—parasites, computer viruses, hackers, movie and pop culture references—did not resonate with me. I could admire it, the translation is slippery and solid, but I don’t feel I would be drawn back to it so readily. It is a quick read, so another visit is likely in order. But not yet.Before Lyricism by Eleni Vakalo, translated from the Greek by Karen Emmerich (Greece, Ugly Duckling)

The plants in the garden
Give a first impression
Of peace
Even more so than pets
But that impression changes
As evening falls
And the garden seems to have multiplied
In the movement
Of proportions of changes
You understand
At such times I try not to look
In case someone is hiding there
As it often seems
Though in morning the garden
Will be once more
Like the slanting line on the cheeks
Of very young girls
When the light strikes them from the side

—from “Plant Upbringing”

I did not have time to review this book, but probably will write more soon. This is a magnificent collection of six early book length poems by Eleni Vakalo, presented with great attention to placement and space on the page, and intended to be read as complete pieces. One of the exciting encounters of my recent BTBA poetry excursions.

Things That Happen by Bhaskar Chakrabarti, translated from the Bengali by Arunava Sinha (India, Seagull Books)

I am so pleased to see an Indian author in translation on each list. This collection strikes a melancholic tone and speaks to very human emotions—loneliness, loss and nostalgia. It speaks to the diversity represented by the BTBA selections.

Adrenalin by Ghayath Almadhoun, translated from the Arabic by Catherine Cobham (Syria, Action Books)

If it isn’t clear from my recent review, I love this book. It is a vital collection and so very timely. I would be quite happy to see this take the award. I certainly hope it makes the short list, along with my other favourite, also from the same publisher, Action Books (in this case a joint publication with Broken Dimache Press in Europe).

Third-Millennium Heart by Ursula Andkjær Olsen, translated from the Danish by Katrine Øgaard Jensen (Denmark, Action Books & Broken Dimanche Press)

You were inside me like I was a house; that does not
mean I know what’s going on inside you. A house
does not know the interior of its resident.

That is the other wall for loneliness.
To irradiate.

My x-ray/loneliness.
Your loneliness/grass.

If you are to be tortured, I must
teach you to sing: as I walked out one midsummer’s morning
it will keep them out.

You make me think, as I walked out, I must learn to sing
double with one voice,

whose song will fan in to seven voices
whose songs will each fan into seven voices
whose songs will each fan into seven voices, whose songs will

make the air solid and prevent any movement. No one can move.
No one can harm you.

I have read this book many times, my copy is exploding with marginalia and sticky notes, and in response, I wrote an experimental review that has been published at Minor Literature[s] . In the meantime, I will say it is at once spare and epic. A post-human vision that moves beyond patriarchal and matriarchal physical, social, and political dynamics—edgy, unnerving and ultimately inspiring. A challenging work, I love it as a piece of literature, and find it endlessly fascinating as a person with a bi-gendered life experience and a history of heart-stopping re-awakening (in literal terms).

So, now to see the short list…

As it is in our house: Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag

The well-being of any household rests on selective acts of blindness and deafness.

India is a linguistically diverse country, with twenty-two scheduled languages, thirteen different scripts, and over 720 dialects. Yet when Western readers think of contemporary Indian literature, the work that most readily comes to mind  is typically written in English, whether by India-based or diasporic writers. Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag, which has garnered much attention over the past year, has been, for many English readers, their first introduction to a book originally written in the South Indian language, Kannada. As one of the long listed titles for the 2018 Best Translated Book Award (BTBA), even more readers will now have a good excuse to meet this established Indian author through this novel, his first work to be translated into English.

At first blush, Ghachar Ghochar seems an unassuming short novel—the story of a family whose financial circumstances take a turn for what should be the better, and the impact of their newfound fortune on their household dynamics. And so it is, but it is much more. Complicated undercurrents run through this tale, building to an ending with uncertain and disturbing implications. What makes it especially unsettling, and affecting, is the strangely passive, rationalization of the narrator. He practices a willful ignorance.

The novel, set in Bangalore, opens at our protagonists’ favourite haunt, Coffee House, with a description of Vincent, the attentive waiter and quiet confessor who tends to his customers’ need and listens to their woes with sensitive discretion. He is not an audience so much as a pretext for the unnamed narrator to unfold his account. Something is troubling the young man. But his concern is distracted. He seems to harbor a conflicted attitude toward women—lack of understanding even—that hints at but does not betray the depth of what we will eventually learn is the true nature of his anxiety.

What follows is a portrait of a joint family bound at all costs to the well-being of the bread-winner, a holdover from their earlier days when resources were limited and they learned to stick together, “walking like a single body across the tightrope of our circumstances.” However, that which once insured their survival in the face of financial distress, stands to destroy them once money is no longer a pressing concern. The story unfolds in terms of status, beginning in the present. The narrator who lives with his wife, his parents and his sister, and all are expected to defer to Chikappa, his father’s younger brother, the founder of the successful spice distribution company that has afforded the ascension of the family from a cramped, dirty house in a lower middle class area of the city to a smart, two-story dwelling across town. Although it is officially a family business, in practice there is little need for the other men to have more than perfunctory roles. The uncle manages it all and the family lets it be. Everyone except Anita, the narrator’s wife, who comes from a very different background and ethic.

Moving down through the family hierarchy, the narrative steps back in time to the years when the narrator’s father, his Appa, struggled to look after his family and put his brother through school on a modest salesman’s salary. Yet, even if money was ever in short supply, he placed great value on good honest, hard labour:

He was inordinately proud of being a salesman. “What do you think a salesman is . . .?” he’d boast, especially when launching into stories about his prowess—how, for instance, he’d managed to sell to a shop whose shelves were always brimming with tea. He polished his shoes every morning and put on an ironed shirt. He’d leave looking like an officer and return at night, wilted from the day’s sun, his clothes rumpled. One glance at his scuffed, dusty shoes was enough to betray the nature of his day’s work.

Everything changes when Appa is unexpectedly forced into early retirement. This is the impetuous his brother needs to act on a business scheme he has been contemplating and, although both brothers are co-owners, they soon find themselves ideologically at odds and as the spice firm takes off, Appa drops into the role of a silent partner, slipping into an increasingly defeated mood. His family worries about his sanity, but not for his sake so much as their concern about their right to his share of Sona Masala’s assets.

The narrator, who with his mother and sister all fall in place, more or less on level, below the two older men, makes much of the interdependence of his family, financially bound in poverty, emotionally bound in wealth. They are all at odds, in their own ways, with the world into which they have ascended almost overnight:

It’s true what they say—it’s not we who control the money, it’s the money that controls us. When there’s only a little, it behaves meekly; when it grows it becomes brash and has its way with us. Money had swept us up and flung us in the midst of a whirlwind.

The sister, Malati, has a particularly disastrous, short-lived marriage. Amma, the matriarch, tries to mediate between family members and maintain their honour against an outside community she no longer knows how to negotiate. Meanwhile, the narrator seems to lose any drive or motivation he may have once aspired to. He too is given a title in the family business, complete with an office and income, but soon realizes there is little for him to do. His uncle has everything under control and no one dares to question what that really means. He takes to lazing around in bed and frequenting Coffee House, showing little ambition, afraid or unwilling or perhaps unable to break away and create a future for himself. With the addition of Anita, his bride by arranged marriage, the precarious household harmony is set completely off balance. The daughter of a professor, she comes from a different background with different expectations and little inclination to suffer fools gladly. She also brings the book’s title, a nonsense expression unique to her family meaning “tangled beyond repair” that she shares with her husband on their wedding night. Yet, it is unclear whether he understands the full relevance of this image before it is too late.

Told with a carefully weighted tone and an economy of words, Ghachar Ghochar is a deceptively easy and enjoyable read. It is not until one nears the latter pages of the book that a creeping unease enters the narrative. The protagonist notices many troubling signs, but repeatedly neglects to act. It is unclear if he shares his father’s tendency to despondency or is simply too self-focused. The troubling factor is that this type of opting out, is not an uncommon response for young men when they cannot find their footing under shifting socio-economic conditions that they feel, rightly or wrongly, are beyond their control. In the Indian setting, the complications of family dynamics and expectations exacerbate the situation. And this, for me, is the real strength and tragedy of this slender volume. There are no easy answers, no heroes, no clear resolutions.

Too much like real life.

Ghachar Ghocharby Vivek Shanbhag is translated by Srinath Perur, and published by Penguin Books.