Timely Tales

J. DEVIKA HAS COMPILED A NUANCED ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY SHORT STORIES FROM KERALA

- Geeta Doctor

FEELING KERALA

An Anthology of Contemporary Malayalam Stories

Translated from the Malayalam by J. Devika

PENGUIN

The pressure cooker was not amused. In the short story Rules for Drivers', the writer Santhosh Aechikkanam tells you that "the cooker was female". It's a detail that baffles Ravichandran, philosopher and writer, who has been abandoned to fend for himself after a slight altercation with his wife Akhila, leaving him with a league of enraged kitchen gadgets and utensils.

In J. Devika's vibrant encounters of the Kerala kind-her selection of short stories translated by her from the Malayalam into English-the protagonist is most often a woman. On the jacket, Devika is described as a "feminist historian, social researcher and translator, currently with the Centre for Development Studies at Thiruvananthapuram".

It's also evident from the often raw and unflinching recording of contemporary issues in Kerala that they are part of a deeper malaise, the delusions of civil society in clinging to a mythical past. Devika admits that her first instinct was to write a book herself. What she does instead is provide long introductions to each of the stories, perhaps with the intention of creating a context for them. For some of us, these interventions, however well meant, remain just that.