P SUJATHA VARMA
“It was a mixed feeling, part happy that my work has been recognised and part disappointed for a fleeting moment that I did not get the award for my original short stories,” says P. Sathyavathi about her ambivalent reaction when received a phone call from the secretary of the Kendra Sahitya Akademi K. Srinivasa Rao congratulating her on winning the literary award for her translation work Nijam Cheptunna: Oka Hijra Atmakatha, an autobiography of transwoman A Revathi. .
Revathi, who belongs to a transgender community in Tamil Nadu, wrote her autobiography Unarvum Uruvamum in 2004. She describes her journey from her birth as ‘Doraisamy’ in Namakkal district to her final transition into a transwoman. Her experience at home, in school and in society form the crux of the book. Revathi today is a role model for many of her ilk who are trying to make a living by finding small jobs.
In 2010, feminist writer V. Geetha, translated the book into English and called it The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story . Sathyavathi translated it for Telugu readers in 2016. “Geetha sent me the book and asked me if I could translate it. I was so moved by the first hand account of Revathi’s sufferings that I immediately agreed,” she recalls. “That the third gender is not treated well by the society is a known fact but Revathi’s book is a vivid depiction of the intensity of the suffering of the community.”
Of all the congratulatory calls that came flooding in, Sathyavathi says the one that made her really happy was from Revathi. “She can speak neither Telugu nor English and so we managed somehow in Hindi, a language neither of us knows too well ,” she chuckles.
A post-graduate in English literature, the 80-year-old also taught English in a local college. She started writing in 1970 but in the last 50 years, she has written only 50 short stories and admits, “I am not a prolific writer and I write at my own pace for my own satisfaction.” She says she took two months to translate Revathi’s autobiography.
Sathyavathi’s stories explore the lives of mostly middle class women engaged in a battle for economic independence, space and identity. Her Illalakagaane (1995) is about a woman’s quest for identity. It portrays the alienation women face in the institution of family. The protagonist in the story has given herself so completely to her family that she forgets her own name.
Her story Super Mom Syndrome (2003) was well received by women from various walks of life who told her that they related to what she had written in it. “We women are constantly trying to accomplish everything possible in a perfect manner, while striving to be a perfect worker, mother, wife, friend and other roles. Women set high , unrealistic goals, which are usually unattainable and many a time, fall prey to health problems or even die in the attempt to excel.” She draws attention to how women are conferred with the status of a ‘Super Mom’ while all she really has been reduced to is a well-oiled machine. .
Growing up at Kolakanuru, a small village in Guntur district, Sathyavathi was the eldest child in the family. She recalls how her mother’s dependence on her father for money made her uncomfortable. “My father was very progressive in his thought and took good care of my mother. But I did not like her asking him for money for every small need.” After completing her tenth standard, she went to college in Hyderabad and then returned home and got married. For two years, she worked as a journalist for a Telugu newspaper and discontinued after the birth of her first child. But she continued writing for magazines. “I would write at night after everybody slept.” She stayed home for 10 years in order to take care of her three children and family, wondering all along if she was doing the right thing with her life. She enrolled for an MA in English and joined as a lecturer in Syed Appalaswamy Degree College where she taught till her retirement.
Translations that began as an activity to keep herself occupied started when she read Adivasi activist C.K. Janu’s autobiography Mother Forest. So inspired was she by the book that she called the publisher and asked if she could translate it into Telugu. And that is how Adavi Thalli happened. There was no looking back after this and Sathyavathi became a name to reckon with in translations.
Sathyavathi’s notions of feminism are very clear. “It is all about inclusivity, humanity and democratic thinking. An inclusive society is the need of the hour.” She feels more needs to be written about women from economically weaker sections of society, and that is what she plans to do.
