Dinachariya Kade Putadinda
Short Stories by Jayashree Kasaravalli
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Most of the contemporary women writers in Kannada tend to address issues which are intellectually and ideologically plausible, but they rarely recognise the basic human premise on which all their experiences are narrated. Women experiences are unique, but they are also human. As an exception, many of the stories in this collection make a brave effort to depict the irony in women’s experiences that have to confront a life which necessarily contains ‘the other’ which is equally mysterious and vulnerable. The narrative is that of a woman indeed, but it is that of a woman who has understood that her counterparts are equally bewildered at the non-palpable issues in their lives.
Stories in this collection take up several issues — domestic disharmony, separation, disenchantment, violence, social expectations, morality, self-imposed restraint, humiliation at something which is mysterious, innate strength of being a woman and the discovery of it, passive submission and subsequent guilt, lack of discretion in judgements, old age, loneliness, death, rape, etc. But nibbling with these issues is expository in the narrative, rather than exploratory. In the process, the fictional potential is lost by making it a detailed thesis containing a lot of details, sometimes not well connected and monotonous. Like a film photographer who captures beautifully every detail around without being sure how they gel with the main narrative, the author seems to be lost in details. Conventionally speaking, fictional narratives usually contain in them a certain ‘dramatic’ element, and that seems missing in these stories. Therefore, ‘stories’ like ManeyoLagobba.., Ondashtu ChoorugaLu, Kaage yaava bannada hakki? Heegobba anamadheya, could easily be classified as good essays. However, there are many, perhaps original, insights developed in the collection. For instance, Dinachariya Kade Putadinda, says that domestic disharmony is not a one-sided issue and it needs a collaborative effort either to live together or to part ways with empathy. The marital disharmony and subsequent separation in the story has a past and also a present and the people involved in them have to confront them consciously. The younger generation (represented by the narrator (daughter) and her brother (son)) handles the situation in all its complexities quite effectively without being too sentimental about it. Similarly, as the title of the story also partially suggests, the tracing of the past from the present is suffused with unanswered questions. But, surprisingly, answers to these questions may have to be found outside the narrative. The monologue in Swagathadacheyuu ... depicts complex nature of a non-ameliorative fatigue that is set in the psyche of a woman.
Interestingly, the intense suffering of the woman is the result of self-imposed disregard for herself. The sensitivity of the author to women’s issues vis-a-vis human problems is evident in this collection. But if the stories do not satisfy an avid reader of literature, the reasons have to be found in the textual construction and not in the ideological manifestations.
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