Stories that reflect reality

In the city to launch a translation of his short stories, author Devibharathi says his writings reflect social struggles and changing values

Author Devibharathi with his book.

Author Devibharathi has been writing for 30 years, and it has always been about his experiences: growing up in a rural environment, a lower middle-class life, and the general tangles that go with it. “I always wondered why we are the way we are, and why we struggle so much. Later, I figured out that joy and sorrow are not just affected by external forces, but also internal ones. According to me, that’s the purpose of life: to figure out life itself,” he says.

In Chennai for the launch of a collection of short stories, Farewell, Mahatma , the translated version of his Tamil book, Pirahoru Iravu , he says that most of his characters struggle through a new world order where the old ways and morality are gone and there is no replacement for them.

A few years ago, when Devibharathi was at a month-long residential programme in Hudson Valley, New York, he was required to read his story at an event. At that time, he approached N. Kalyan Raman, who has translated several books from Tamil to English, to translate a short story. This was followed by another story for a reading programme in Switzerland.

Kalyan Raman says what drew him to the first story, which gives its title to the book, was that it reconstructed and re-imagined Gandhi in a way that made him relevant to the present. “It is not his passing, but his disappearance from public conscience that is not easy to explain. Devibharathi was able to show us how Gandhi was killed twice over. It showed how the fact that people have lost their ideals is not natural, but a conscious act of will. It was worth thinking about, and the best way to do it was by just telling a story and evoking the imagination of the reader instead of preaching to them,” he says.

It took about a year to translate the rest of the stories. “I can’t say it was easy, but it was not difficult. Translating involves getting under the skin of the writer and understanding his narrative voice. With Devibharathi, he does not complicate the narrative by putting himself in it. His craft does not interfere with it, and he can be seemingly distant from the story,” says Kalyan Raman.

Some of Devibharathi’s favourite stories in the collection include

Reversal ,

A Person Named Das ,

The Curse of Resurrection , and

A Place Called Home . The stories focus on people’s reactions and “Usually, it takes time to get anthologies translated and published. But these stories were written between 2007 and 2011, so it’s refreshing and a good sign that it has come through so soon,” he says.

The translation of his next book, which focuses on revenge, The Solitude of Shadows , is in progress.