Out of Print-CLF Stories: Sunaina Jain

A Faceless Voice

Sunaina Jain

I have lost all sense of time and space. The particular has become the universal. I am a faceless voice now as I feel myself evaporate into thin air. The bamboo wood pyre is still smouldering, the thick fumes of smoke are blackening the blue sky. My soul is in trauma, seeing the mutilated physical remains of my body.

My only daughter, Kadambri has come all the way from Bengaluru to Pune to attend my funeral. Earlier, she was arguing with some people who are in charge of the crematorium. My family and relatives were waiting for our space to get free. Don’t you know? We have been pushed to one of the corners specially Reserved for us Dalits. And today, our place was occupied because of another death in our community. Finally, my family members were relieved of their responsibility and bade me adieu. Tomorrow, my cold ashes will be consecrated to a nearby river. A neat, holy end to a life! Is it all?

‘Kill the bloody bastard! This son of a bitch dares to resort to profanity!’ They used curse words and started punching and whacking me with their closed fists, and hitting me with iron rods. I felt a hard blow on the forehead and lay writhing in pain on the verandah of my house. I could feel the hot blood coursing through my hair to the floor. The next thing I remember is a white flame emanating from my body and reaching up the skies. I am free now, I have no threats, no earthly hierarchies, nothing to fear, nothing to hold on to.

All my life, I had vowed to and worked towards maintaining the sanctity of my own beliefs. As a child, even as I felt humiliated when they called me ‘cuntfaced’, ‘son of a whore’, ‘shameless pig’ and … the list went on, I was a precocious learner. My teacher couldn’t accept how a Dalit could read and write flawlessly. Probably, that was one of my first violations of norms. ‘Ay! You pariah! How dare you sit on the first bench? You stink! The bench has been polluted with your touch. You and your posterity have been condemned to live as outcastes. You have to pay for the sins of your previous birth. Dare not forget that!!!’ my outraged teacher screamed at me.

‘Sir, I take a bath daily. How can I stink?’ My counter-question had resulted in a merciless thrashing at the knuckles of my fingers and flogging on my bony back. But this did not suppress me. I challenged my teacher’s authority by taking the beating in my stride. I became a disciple of Goddess Saraswati, though not so favoured a one. I stealthily caught hold of ancient Hindu scriptures trying to get at the roots of the earned censure of our community. This was my (in)formal initiation into the world of books. As I grew older, my fascination for books eventually turned me into a teacher cum writer. Some called me a Dalit activist.

Bina Phule, whom I married, had done her Masters in Political Science, no mean feat for a Dalit woman. She is a God-fearing woman who unlike me has faith in religious rituals. However, had she been actually God-fearing, she would not have entered the temple we had been debarred entry from since decades. I think she is God-loving….

‘You polluted caste, you have defiled our God. Now when we have caught you, you have your eyes downcast. Why don’t you get buried under the ground? We shall have to undertake the cleansing rituals in the entire temple premises,’ shouted the upper-caste Hindu.

‘Sahib, God does not make distinctions between upper-castes and lower-castes. We are all children of God. People like you are a blot in the name of humanity,’ my wife said defiantly. The man struck a harsh blow on her right cheek. The incident left her shattered but in a way, more assertive. Since then, she supported me in every possible manner, supplementing my writings with her own input and ideas.

My latest book ‘The Naked Indian’ did not strike a chord with many respectable torchbearers of religion and heritage. They purported the words of the scriptures, but only during the day. I would not delve into their activities at night!

Even after my physical existence ceases to exist, I cannot resist the temptation of transcending barriers … this time a crossover to the other world, free from temporal precincts. There is no ground beneath me and my soul seems lighter, floating freely over the silver cotton clouds. I am a little tired after a steep ascent. I want to sit back, relax and rest. During my life on earth, I did not physically hurt anyone nor did I play with anyone’s emotions. Rightfully, I should be destined for heaven. Now, after a sprawling void, I can see a wooden gate with floral and animal engravings on it. I had seen such magnificence only in tv period dramas before.

Tap! Tap! Tap! I knock mildly at the gate, I have mellowed after death. My anger and frustration have finally subsided as I anticipate a welcome entry into the starry tents. A robust guard with thick-black moustaches and shining brass armour, opens the splendid gate.

‘Who are you?’ he asks in a deep, husky voice.

‘Arjun, Sir. I am a writer.. I have been a fair and honest person in my life. But I have been a victim of senseless violence. I want peace now. Kindly grant me entry.’

‘Which gotra?’ the guard asks me plainly.

‘Isn’t this Heaven? I am a Dalit. Thankfully, I have left behind my baggage of unfulfilled hopes. May I not go in now?’

‘No, No. Wait. You are right, you are in Heaven. But you know, here entry is not on a first come first serve basis but on the basis of previous karma.  Since you are a Dalit, you might have committed more sins. Don’t worry. We are not judgmental. But rules are rules. There are a few Brahmins already waiting. Could you stand aside and let them come in first?’

Sunaina Jain has recently completed her PhD in English from Panjab University, Chandigarh. She is working as an Asst Professor in English at MCM DAV College, Chandigarh. She has presented papers at national and international seminars. She has published many research papers in refereed national and international journals. Her poems have featured in the journals, The Criterion, Galaxy, Langlit, Dialog and South Asian Ensemble. 

The Out of Print Workshop at the Chandigarh Literature Festival 2015 

Out of Print-CLF 2015 Stories: Rakshita Gupta

Born Good

Rakshita Gupta

‘Didi, I am not well ... call asap,’ texted Gaurav with a crying emoji. It was his usual message, his usual trick to trap Sania into his emotional crises. He knew how to use social media more than most time-eaters. As usual, the trick worked. Sania was on leave today; she needed the one-day break. Partly because of her hectic job schedule, but mostly because of the torture her younger brother, Gaurav subjected her to. She switched on her phone in the evening just to see it hang because of the many messages she had received, including Gaurav’s.

‘Eh! Now you want to destroy my meditating self! You better not’, said she to her phone. To her luck, the phone started working and she managed to read Gaurav’s message.

She immediately dialed his number. It rang once. Twice ... thrice…. For how long could she remain patient? She had been patient defending Gaurav all his life. She had pampered him. She was so possessive of him that she would sometimes forget that her parents were there too.

Finally, before she was completely stressed, he took her call.

‘Hello Gur, What happened? I just saw your message.’

‘Didi, I am sorry. I did not pass, I got detained, again! I do not know how. Please do not tell Papa, he will kill me. Didi, are you listening … Didi, please, I said I am sorry. Hello ... Hello Didi…’

The call was dropped. She did not cry. She had been dreaming of a bright future for him. Now he had appeared for his 6^th semester exams twice. She had thought she would be able to tell her parents and the entire world that her hopeless brother had passed. She was searching for colleges for his Masters degree ... Masters in Biochemistry ... and then a scientist ... and ... and … leave it! Her hopes for him shrank into a tiny particle of dust.

‘Oh Gur, what have you done!’ she cried but there was no one to hear. She gathered courage to call him again. This time he picked up her call at once. ‘Sorry Didi,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘I’ll die if you will not talk to me. I swear I will!’

‘Dying would not make the difference, the difference which I want you to make from being a liar, thief, drunkard and a scoundrel, Gur, to a changed being.’

‘Please don’t worry, Didi, please. I will try to fill the retest form and reevaluation form. I will do every possible thing to pass this time. Some hard cash would do it, you know I have made contacts.’

‘What!’ shouted Sania.

Whom are you talking to? Have you again started taking drugs?’

‘No Didi, don’t get me wrong.’ But before he could continue she started off with her usual cribbing, scratching each wound till it bled.

She said, ‘Gur, you are a severe pain in my life, a brain hemorrhage that bursts my brain.’ She went on and on and on, evoking the time he stole the diamond ring from tayiji’s closet, when they caught him smoking as a child … till she seemed to be living those bitter memories again and dragging him back to the abyss of his past life.

Has the mind ever been in anyone’s control in anger and anxiety. They say ‘to speak less and thoughtfully when you are angry.’ She did completely opposite and continued, ‘And your infinite lies, my God! It was all my fault, all mine, I repent now. I should have never let you hold my fingers when you were born. I kept on defending your every mistake, but I should have known you would stab me. Why do you have to be such a failure, oh God! I am done with you. You are a scoundrel, a drug addict and whatever else everyone in the family has been calling you. And you can never change. How I wish you were never born!’

Something changed and both felt it.

She could not do anything about it. Words once spoken, could not be taken back. She tried to compose herself and went to do her household chores. She was unsure of what to say to her father about Gaurav’s result. And she did not have any idea what Gaurav was doing.

Not unexpectedly, she was not able to sleep. After twisting and turning for about an hour in bed, she got up and checked her Whatsapp. There was no message from Gaurav. But she had hectic days ahead because a fieldwork project had come up.

She dropped Gaurav a message saying, ‘You better handle this yourself this time!’

After three days it was time to face her parents. But before talking to them, she had to talk to Gaurav. Tangled in the mixed feelings of anger and love she did not know if she should talk to him in a tender voice or in a hard tone. She did not even know if she should talk to him or not.

Gaurav had not replied yet. In her anxiety she kept checking her phone. It had been about three days now. She hated that she was checking on him the way she never had done before. Yet she couldn't stop herself; no communication from him was becoming unbearable, almost tortuous. And then, just as she breathed heavily trying to compose herself, her phone vibrated. But when she opened it and read it, she nearly stopped breathing.

‘I am sorry Didi, I will never be a hemorrhage in your brain again. I will tell God you were never at fault to spoil me. I wish I had born Good so that you never had to say that…’

‘No!’, she screamed in panic and called him. Someone else answered.

He had overdosed. After staying clean for one year. He had overdosed

‘Sania you killed him. You killed your own brother.’

Rakshita Gupta is an inquisitive person who resides in the utopia of literature. Nevertheless she nourishes her soul with all forms of art and aesthetics. The 20 year old is a native of Jammu, J&K currently living in Chandigarh. She is a budding writer and a poet pursuing masters in English. She is a theatre artist by choice and a poet by passion but enjoys dipping her pen into the ink of fiction writing as well.

The Out of Print Workshop at the Chandigarh Literature Festival 2015

The Out of Print Short Fiction Workshop at The Chandigarh Literature Festival: The Stories

The focus of the Out of Print short fiction workshop at the Chandigarh Literature Festival was lynching and mob violence. Sadly, there is no need to elaborate on the reasons for the choice so soon after Dadri. The presence of Nayantara Sahgal as one of the key speakers and attendees at the festival, made this theme only more relevant.

This was a generous workshop, among other things, in terms of the time allotted, and I think all the participants were grateful for the time to write, and the time to critique, as a group, each other’s works.

Three readings were suggested to the participants in advance, two that have appeared in Out of Print, Mischief in Netanagar by Altaf Tyrewala and Bed Bug by Vasudhendra – which meant that they were easily accessible. The other, A Day in 1919  by Sadat Husain Manto was from the translation by Rakshanda Jalil in Naked Voices: Stories and Sketches, Roli Books, 2008.

The intention of the readings was to examine ways in which the issue of violence, mass violence can be dealt with in short fiction. In Altaf Tyrewala’s story, a mob riot is potentially triggered following Pakistan’s win in a cricket match. The protagonist is driven by a profound sense of powerlessness, a feeling of having no control over any part of his life, and is driven to mischief, with very wide-reaching implications. In Vasudhendra’s Bed Bug a young man is put to death for being blatantly and boldly homosexual. The actual killing is carried out by the father and brothers of the young man, but the multi-layered aspect of the violence may be seen as perpetrated on him by almost the entire the village. Manto’s brilliant A Day in 1919 has been beautifully and expertly analysed by many a scholar. Suffice it to say that the story creates many layers of distance in dealing with the violence of Jalianwala Bagh massacre, but in the end, its power lies in the sharp focus of the personal response.

That personal viewpoint, that ability to focus mass injustice, large-scale violence to a single, if multi-faceted story is one of the powers of short fiction. Which, of course, aligns with an instinctive human response to scales that seem beyond comprehension. Each of the four stories that were sent in by the participants deals with a larger injustice in a deeply personal way.

Parminder Singh’s Regurgitation places the story in the context of deep-seated prejudice and the cruelty it engenders. A Faceless Voice by Sunaina Jain views caste injustice from the very high seat of death itself. Jonaki Ray tells the story of rape, and the societal fabric that breeds impunity, from multiple viewpoints in Kaleidoscope. Born Good examines the pressure that a loving and indulgent sister faces when drugs and failure afflict a sibling.

I post this after attending the brilliant keynote address by Shashi Deshpande at the opening session of the Bangalore Literature Festival. Among many other critical points she made, she questioned if writers can bring about change. If one can summarise and paraphrase her, writers can’t change anything, but they can open the floor to discussion. All of the four stories from the Out of Print short fiction workshop at the Chandigarh Literature Festival can certainly do so.

The stories:
Parminder Singh, Regurgitation 
Sunaina Jain A Faceless Voice 
Jonaki Ray Kaleidoscope
Rakshita Gupta Born Good 

2015 DNA-OUT OF PRINT Short Fiction Special: Links to the winning and shortlisted stories

Read the stories of the winner and 4 finalists, and the shortlisted entries of the 2015 DNA-OUT OF PRINT Short Fiction Special:

Zui Kumar-Reddy	Anagrams and Barbed Wire Jesus
Indu Suryanarayan	Clay
Farah Ahamed	Life Will be Better
Tanuj Solanki	Reasonable Limits
Suresh S	Pardesi
Sowmya Aji	August 15, 2012
Pravin Vemuri	The Last Rain
Meghna Pant	The Good Husband
Kanchana Doraiswamy	Hummingbirds
Abha Iyengar	The Marshlands
Trisha Bora	How to Lose a River
bhavani	Rock, Paper, Scissors
Devika Rajan	Post Apocalypse
Mathangi Subramanian	Half Wild
Dipika Mukherjee	A Hierarchy of Grief
Nabina Das	The Trains Came Back
Prashila Naik	Like the Sun Disappeared Behind the Clouds

2015 DNA-OUT OF PRINT Short Fiction Shortlist: Sowmya Aji

August 15, 2012

Sowmya Aji

I was standing on our cramped terrace, watching the moon, when I saw them. A group of five men in their early twenties walking up the main road, carrying torches and sticks.

Torches I understand, for no one can predict when Bangalore’s streetlights will go off due to a power shutdown. But why sticks? The street dogs are not that scary, they go away if yelled at or are ignored. No need to beat them off with sticks.

I watched as they turned down our small road in Neelasandra. They appeared to be headed for our house. Visitors for our antiquated landlady Rukmini Ramakrishna? At this hour? How very odd.

But the rattling knock sounded on our door. Priscilla was asleep, she leaves at 7 am for her job at a start-up IT company in Electronics city. I flew down the old stairs from the terrace, to stop the knocks from waking her, but there was a louder bang. As I reached our door, I heard Priscilla stirring behind me in our shared room.

‘Yaaru?’ I called out, asking who it was. I was not comfortable opening the door at 8.30 pm, despite the room light being on. Bangalore is safe, yes, and I have lived here all my life. But why take risks, especially when it’s a group of young men?

‘Open the door, we have to tell you something,’ said a voice. Priscilla was sitting up. ‘What is it?’ she asked me in her Assamese-clipped English. ‘They are saying they have something to tell us,’ I muttered. ‘But who is it?’ she asked again.

I didn’t like it, but if they continued yelling, Rukku, as Priscilla and I referred to the landlady, would come out of her house next door. She had warned us when she rented this room to two unwed girls that there should be no boys at all. And finding another room at this rent in Bangalore was filled with difficulties.

I opened the door a crack. ‘What did you want?’ I asked. The cool dude in front, in a dark, stylish kurta, pants and neon sneakers, held the incongruous stick and torch in his hands. ‘We don’t want to talk to you, we want to talk to her,’ he said gruffly. I frowned and turned to Priscilla.

Priscilla looked at me blankly. She swung her legs off the bed and came to the door. ‘What?’ she asked him, peering through the partially opened door, over my shoulder. All the young men on the other side of the door stirred. ‘This one’s a typical chinky only,’ said one. I bristled and glared, but luckily Pricilla didn’t hear him.

‘Medam,’ said the dude in front of me, addressing Priscilla in English, ‘We warn you. We don’t want your kind here. Leave Bangalore and go back to wherever you come from. And don’t come back. Or…’ he lifted his stick, uncaring of my presence.

*

This couldn’t be happening. Not in my city! ‘What are you saying!’ I hissed, furious. The dude ignored me and gave Priscilla a sneering smile. ‘Be happy medam. I am warning you, not attacking you. Go. Don’t be here when we come again tomorrow.’

I was shaking my head in disbelief. The young men behind him stirred again. ‘Why do we have to hold on now? Let’s show her straight away.’

My hands began to shake. I slammed the door quickly, and stood leaning against it. I was the born in the middle of the Cauvery riots in Bangalore, the riots which showed the world for the first time the simmering fascism under the surface of one of the most welcoming cities anywhere. Local Tamils were attacked by local Kannadigas, often their neighbours, over the release of scarce Cauvery waters to Tamil Nadu. My mother went into labour just as the city erupted, and my parents had to walk down to the nearest nursing home. The fear and horror they went through that day, walking amidst hoards of bike-riding young boys shouting hate slogans, has scarred them for life.

Priscilla was speaking in rapid Assamese to someone on her mobile. We needed the cops. I grabbed my mobile, dialled 100. ‘Yes,’ said a languid voice after 10 rings. ‘Some boys have come and threatened my roommate that she should leave Bangalore immediately,’ I blurted out. ‘Which area?’ the voice asked, unperturbed. I gave the address, and more details about those young men. ‘Hmm, you should call Neelsandra police station,’ the voice said. ‘Can’t you help? Give us protection?’  I asked, my voice shaking. ‘Their jurisdiction no, ma? You call them,’ the voice hung up, without listening to my asking for the Neelasandra police station number.

I said sharply: ‘Priscilla, what rubbish. Let’s just go to the police station.’ She shook her head. ‘My mother wants me to catch the train right now and leave,’ she mumbled, digging out her backpack from under her bed.

‘But Priscilla you won’t get a booking on the Guwahati train at this hour!’ I said.  No response. ‘What about your job?’ I asked. She sent most of her money home, and the family needed it.  She couldn’t just chuck it away. ‘I will call and arrange leave tomorrow,’ she said. But did she need to go like this?

I tried again: ‘I am here na, Priscilla? I am local. They can’t do anything. Let us go to the police station?’ I don’t think she even heard me, as she packed.

We went to an ATM. She withdrew everything except the mandatory Rs 1000 from her account. She wouldn’t take anything from me. We found an auto, agreed to pay double meter and went to the city railway station.

The air was thick with fear, as the station overflowed with people from the North East, jabbering in languages that I didn’t know, some of which even Priscilla didn’t understand.  Priscilla looked around with tear-filled eyes. I held her hand tightly, as we waded through the mob to the long snaking queue at the ticket counters.

‘I will never get a ticket,’ Priscilla said, suddenly. I didn’t say anything. We could see the Guwahati train on the platform from where we were standing. It was already full and from what I could see, as packed as a Mumbai local. The train began to move from the platform. There were shouts, slogans, screams, as people jostled, trying to jump from the platform on to the train. The railway staff quickly announced that two more trains would go to Guwahati, and the panic halted.

A man approached us. ‘Ticket?’ he asked, business like. He was selling in them in black at Rs 2000 a ticket. My burning anger finally surfaced. ‘Yellargu ticket kot right helbidtira?’ I said through clenched teeth. He looked surprised, then moved away. Priscilla was uncomprehending. ‘What I said was rowdy-speak for will you kill everybody,’ I said.

Priscilla hugged me. ‘I will come back,’ she said. ‘Will you really?’ I asked, my eyes finally filling with tears. She held my hand. And we waited for the next train.

Sowmya Aji is a journalist with the Economic Times in Bengaluru and the author of Delirium, Harper Collins India, 2013.