Premise: 'Supplication' and 'Dual Awakenings' by Neera Kashyap reviewed by Vandana Devi

Dual Awakenings and Supplication by Neera Kashyap

Reviewed by Vandana Devi

Neera Kashyap tugs at our heartstrings when she encompasses her whole stories with the theme of faith. Her belief in a higher power and her appeals to female goddesses and female saints are quite melancholic in nature. So are her stories ‘Dual Awakenings’ and ‘Supplication’.

Both her stories contain historical sites and myths that makes it seem like there is a story within a story. When her characters search for these goddesses and saints, she leaves a trail of description of these religious sites that are quite extensive, leaving us with the feeling that we too have taken a trip alongside these characters to these beautiful places of worship.

In ‘Supplication’, the narrator goes in search of the dargah of a woman saint. She takes the readers along, as she smells the fragrance, feels the silence and sees the dimly lit place. In the prayer room of Mai Sahiba, the reason for her exhaustion is finally revealed and the desperation can be understood deeply when she says ‘I don’t want the courage to cope’. The story is not just about acceptance of fate. It is also about the realisation that faith can give us the strength to accept our fate.

In ‘Dual Awakenings’, the narrator goes on a similar trip to find the idol of a goddess of fertility. Neera Kashyap too evolves as a writer and her prose seems similar, but better. This slightly longer story has beautiful descriptions of caves and seas. The goddess Hariti’s power seems to pour through the writing into the reader as well. She spells out the pain of motherhood and loss with hauntingly beautiful prose.

Neera Kashyap writes strong female characters who are independent in their search for meaning. They have support mechanisms as friends and partners, but they also have a sense of inherent loneliness in them which makes the contexts of the stories more believable.

As a reader, I enjoyed both of Neera Kashyap’s stories because in this day and age, most people especially in urban settings, tend to forget the comfort of faith and this is what these stories remind us.


Reviewer Vandana Devi is an intern at Out of Print.

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Premise: 'The Good Wife' by Pavithra Srinivasan reviewed by Deeksha Balaji

The Good Wife, A Retelling by Pavitra Srinivasan

Reviewed by Deeksha Balaji

Featured in Out of Print’s March 2015 journal, Srinivasan’s retelling of a Tamilian folk tale is hauntingly enamouring and leaves the reader with a buzzing mind. It is a beautiful story dating the perpetration of violence against women back to the BC Era, showing the inherent oppression of the woman in marriage and family.

The story tells the tale of a young woman, Neeli appearing before the council of elders (a bit like the modern Panchayat) in the Tamil village of Pazhaiyanur. She expresses her grievances- that her husband Bhuvanapathi refused to recognize her and their daughter- and seeks justice from the elders. It is revealed in the story that Neeli’s husband and her in-laws had ousted her from the family after arranging a second marriage for Bhuvanapathi with a more affluent family. While Neeli herself had no objection to this marriage, the family was stubborn and forcefully ostracized her.

A woman at the time was compelled to present herself as a dharampatni or a ‘good wife’ in order to be given justice, though ideally, it should have been given to her regardless. The same is the case with Neeli who presents herself as an immaculate follower of the scriptures and a blind adherent to the Laws of Manu. It is thus that she is able to convince the elders to sympathise with her and grant her requests. However, despite being built as a meek character throughout the story, a shocking twist in the end, reveals a more feminist streak in her character.

More importantly, the story leads the reader to question several beliefs held dearly even in modern Indian society. What does it mean to be a good wife? To be ‘seen and not heard’? To be obedient and exist for the sole purpose of pleasing those around her? To be so immensely dependent that she cannot survive without her husband? To have no identity of her own? Srinivasan’s stroke of genius forces us to consider the ramifications of the ‘trophy wife’ stereotype contextualize it. How much has really changed in the status of wives since the reign of the Pandyas in 300BCE?

In a very poignant way, the story nullifies the traditional and stereotypical essentials of a ‘good wife’. The idea of the dharampatni is a mere justification for the age old trends of domestic violence. In an eerily beautiful manner, Srinivasan’s masterpiece sheds light on this injustice.

Reviewer Deeksha Balaji is an intern at Out of Print and helped develop the project 'Premise'.

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Premise

Premise

an assertion or proposition that forms the basis for a work

Reviews of stories published in the journal by authors, writers, readers and friends of Out of Print.

Short responses of less than 300 words and reviews of greater depth, generally around 700 to a 1000 words, although there is no strict limit.

Reviewers are encouraged to select stories they wish to write about from the current issue or from the archives or the list of contributors, preferably choosing works that have not yet been written about.

Reviews

Sharika Nair's 'Evol Story' reviewed by Anshu Mysooru

Bhumika Anand's 'Reclamation' reviewed by Mahima Kohli

Bhargava Gade's 'Amma' reviewed by Prashila Naik

Satyajit Amin's 'The Years Behind Her Ears' reviewed by Pranvi Khare

Anjum Hasan's 'The Big Picture' reviewed by Salini Vineeth

Amrita Lall's 'California Sunshine' reviewed by Prashila Naik

Kuzhali Manickavel's 'Whore' reviewed by Farah Ahamed

Maria Elsa da Rocha's 'Dom Teotónio' translated from Portuguese by Paul Melo e Castro reviewed by Helga do Rosário Gomes

Kuzhali Manickavel's 'This Is Us and This Is Us Outside' reviewed by Farah Ahamed

Shashi Deshpande's 'The Three Princesses of Kashi' reviewed by Brinda S Narayan

Farah Ghuznavi's 'Escaping The Mirror' reviewed by Nidhi Arora

Natasha Gayari's 'Chennai Summer' reviewed by Michelle D'costa 

Jayant Kaikikini's 'The Threshold' translated by Pratibha Umashankar-Nadiger reviewed by Brinda S Narayan

Tanuj Solanki's 'The Issue' reviewed by Michelle D'costa

Mohit Parikh's 'Recess' reviewed by Ajay Patri

Rebecca Lloyd's 'Finger Buffet' reviewed by Brinda S Narayan

Shrilal Shukla's 'Among the Hunters' translated by Daisy Rockwell reviewed by Rebecca Lloyd

Chika Unigwe's 'The Itinerary of Grief' reviewed by Vandana Devi

Fehmida Zakeer's 'A Season of Premature Twilight' reviewed by Neera Kashyap

Neera Kashyap's 'Supplication and 'Dual Awakenings' reviewed by Vandana Devi

Pavithra Srinivasan's 'The Good Wife' reviewed by Deeksha Balaji

Short Responses

Neera Kashyap's 'Supplication' by Rebecca Lloyd

Murli Melwani's 'A Gift for the Goddess' by Kusum Choppra

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Out of Print embarks on a project to engage its community of writers and readers. Stories published in the journal are being reviewed by authors and readers and reviewers and friends of Out of Print and through this examination, energising the meaning of the short story.

As project coordinator, Deeksha Balaji puts it:

Premise is a project which seeks to build a literary community and generate responses from the readers of Out of Print magazine, by connecting with writers and editors across the subcontinent to review some of the stories that have been published by us over the years.

If a story were to be compared to an investment, then the review would be an analysis of whether the investment yields good returns. In a larger sense however, a book review is more than just a thumbs up on the story. Reviews engage with the central idea of a story and morph into an extension of sorts. They provide a critical analysis and highlight the key themes in the stories.

Essentially, reviews reveal the story behind a story - they provide the Premise.

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Seven fine stories grace Issue 31 of Out of Print.

In Mridula Garg’s ‘Seven Little Rooms’, flawlessly translated by the author herself, a tourist road through the hills takes a twist into an ancient tale. Crossing boundaries between many different worlds, the clean tonal quality of the writing only enhances the disconcerting sense of anxiety that pervades the story.

Neera Kashyap’s ‘Dual Awakenings’ returns to a theme that occupies her – a woman struggling with repeated miscarriages finds comprehension after a visit to a place of profound spiritual significance. The complexities she faces that begin to find understanding through a chance dialogue are finely explored.

As in the above two stories, we are thrown once again into old, wild landscapes in LC Sumithra’s ‘kanivemane.com’ translated with careful attention to the author’s particular style and cultural sensibilities by Sushumna Kannan. As an old man’s beloved home in the Malnad is converted into a homestay, the responses of the people who are variously touched by the place are captured with extraordinary insight.

We are taken from the ancient to a burnt dystopian future by Salvatore Difalco’s ‘Time of the Djinns’. In desperate search of food, Dr Ram, a chiropractor, wanders his corner of the city. While his senses aggressively assaulted by different odours and by the argumentative voice in his head, he encounters a djinn, who seems to be his nemesis.

A layered tale of family and mystery, Barnali Ray Shukla’s ‘Pickpocket’ is driven by the strong personality of the narrator’s voice. A woman deals with the mysterious death of a distant uncle and the guilt of having not kept up with his wife, even as she prepares a party for her soldier husband who is returning after four months beyond the grid.

The final two stories enter the inner thoughts of two young women at different points in the spectrum of seeking love. In ‘The Monk’ by Prashila Naik, a college student deals with her all-encompassing infatuation with a one of her classmates. Is she noticed, has he seen her? Compelled by these questions, she follows him home! Komal Singh in ‘Dear Future Self’, on the other hand, must decide how to respond to an eager beaux, a good man but one for whom she feels no attraction. Will she choose safety, stability and a prosperous life in ‘clean and quiet’ suburbia or return, once again, to loneliness?