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An Endless Winter’s Night THERE could not have been a more representative anthology of mother-daughter stories and poems. They not only put the relationship at the centre stage but also portray what it means to be a female in the contemporary India. The editors, Ira Raja and Kay Souter, have appropriately chosen the title of the anthology from a Rajasthani proverb, for it not only symbolises the intimate nature of relationship but also the secret nature of it that engages the relationship in an ever expanding dialogue. But bearing in mind the nature of the patriarchal society, it is hardly surprising that this bond is neither codified nor very open. Not surprisingly, pain and pathos are an integral part of it.
In fact, most of the stories are all too familiar to any sensitive reader and one need not be a woman to plumb the depths of emotions. Veena Shanteshwara’s The Shadow delineates the theme of the place of the aging and the sick among the young and the healthy. The pain that the protagonist suffers at sending her mother away to an institution to preserve the happiness of her young family is today shared by the most of the society. Similarly, the theme of female feticide occupies a large space of the social consciousness and is dealt with shared sensitivity that finally appears to be evolving into a resolve. However, My Mother, her Crime and The Art of Dying bring the reader back to the real world where even a mother not only prefers a son but is a harried lot when confronted with the challenge of raising a growing girl. A few numbers in the anthology might belong to what is euphemistically called the Dalit literature but even in those collections, one cannot miss the universal nature of the bond that exists between mothers and daughters in the country. On the face of it, Jyoti Lanjewar’s Mother may be categorised as a political statement, but it remains an ode to those who lose not hope in the struggle to resist an exploitative system and who are willing to suffer but not compromise on their individual and collective right to dignity. But the fate of the mother who spends much of her waking time in weaving baskets so that her children can study and that of a woman who deftly pleats the cotton sari in the dark and has no time but to occasionally pat the silk and embroidered saris is no different. One can be sure that the burdens of daily chores that they carry notwithstanding, both of them are capable of rearing their head like a cobra if the existence of their daughters is threatened. For any literature to be
categorised as regional, feminist or Dalit is an unfortunate branding.
Those who love literature appreciate it for the universal emotion that
they evoke and the ripples that they create in our consciousness. An
Endless Winter’s Night weighs favourably on these scales and
therefore, the book should be a welcome addition to the bookshelves.
More so because the quality of the translation is excellent, the
translators taking care of retaining the original words where their
retention has added to the quality of the narration.
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This
is best illustrated by Nasira Sharma’s story The Chest. The
suffering caused in the story is because of the inability of the
protagonists to break from the shackles of the inherited responses.
While in the first story The Swan, by Usha Yadav, it is
the young daughter who raises the voice justice when her mother is
being publicly humiliated, in The Chest the grown up and
independent characters do not muster courage to stop the aging mother
from surrendering the will to live.