Tamil Women's Poetry: A Current of Contemporary Voices

Tamil woman’s poetry: a current of contemporary voices

Selected with an introduction by: Kutti Revathi English Translation by: N Kalyan Raman

Published in

INDIAN LITERATURE Issue 254, November-December 2009 Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi INDIA

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pages

“Of what our written language speaks”, by Kutti Revathi

i – vi

Part One: Tamil women poets from India

1 - 20

Part Two: Tamil women poets from Eelam

21 - 57

Notes on Poets and Contributors

58-60

INTRODUCTION Of what our written language speaks… Kutti Revathi Translator N Kalyan Raman and I worked jointly on this anthology towards documenting the contemporary voice of modern Tamil women’s poetry. When the idea was first mooted by the poet K. Satchidanandan, I could have scarcely imagined that the task would prove to be so difficult, challenging and absorbing. To select, from among hundreds of Tamil poets, clear articulations of the modern Tamil voice was indeed a major challenge. In this effort, I received a great deal of co-operation from the translator, Kalyan Raman. I wish to express my gratitude to poet Satchidanandan for selecting me for this prestigious assignment and to the translator, Kalyan Raman, for his efforts to bring contemporary Tamil poetry to a wider readership through translation. Although Tamil women poets have written prolifically over the years, these poems have been selected giving importance to the politics they advance, bearing in mind the language used and the manner of its animation. This anthology may bring the reader the voice of women who combine, in their writing, categories such as modernity, Tamil nationalism or ethnicity, female gender and the domain of poetry with humanities in general. Modernity has a varied history specific to the literature of each language. Moreover, with respect to Tamil, the language should be seen as possessing a modernity that is tied equally to a millennia-old tradition. Therefore, besides moulting its skin regularly over time, the shape of modern Tamil literature is also one that evolves through continuously ingesting and assimilating contemporary politics, culture and societal trends. Only through such a process does the evolution of a language come about. Tamil women’s poetry Women’s poetry in Tamil has not only assimilated the Tamil poetic tradition, but has emerged also as the articulation of an Indian voice. During occasions that demand the articulation of alternate voices, instead of remaining silent and inactive, it has served as a focal point for ideological debate. Going beyond mere expression of conventional dissent on societal issues, it has also mutated into an expression of the politics of such issues. Although, feminist poetry’s beginnings in all countries are generally on similar lines, its political ascendancy in a society and transformation into a movement will be a function of the ideological vigour already prevalent there. On this score, there are several reasons underlying the stiff opposition that has emerged in Tamilnadu to such political expression. For one, ours is a social space which has excluded women from any form of sexual dialogue. Another reason is that Tamil women’s poetry was totally opposed to the extant dominant voice of Tamil nationalism. Just as the body belongs to man, so do the words that denote the parts thereof, is another reason. So, too, is the exclusion

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of women from poetry, the finest literary form. And where her entry is permitted, such permission is granted only on condition that her poetry must subject itself to self-censorship. We can understand the backdrop to this development by taking into account the criticism such poetry engendered in our society, the repression it was subjected to and the strata of social life that it represented. After women’s participation in the age-old Tamil tradition of classical literature, it was only in the twentieth century that the female voice chooses an overt language of poesy. I see literary forms like the novel and short story as essentially alien to the poetry form, for I believe that poetry constitutes a kind of weaponry for a language, an essential articulation of that society and a form of its activism. Therefore, even in the very adoption by women of poetry as their literary form of choice, there is a profound politics as well as activism. In a novel or a short story, it is possible for the author to insert poetry or an imagined reality that does not represent her own. Poetry, however, mostly demands introspection from the poet. In order to engage with it, a woman also needs adeptness at her language which has been denied her since ancient times; she also needs courage. After participating regularly and continuously in poetry seminars held in the neighbouring states, I was able to recognize that what set apart Tamil women’s poetry and preserved it was the politics that it has dared to articulate. In other words, even as western feminism that was thrust upon India gave licence generally to identify all women poets as feminists, it merely encouraged opposition to the same social frameworks that it has been opposing: therefore, feminists here confined themselves to contributing in the struggle for enforcing women’s rights in the public sphere – as in religion, marriage, family and workplace. But only in Tamilnadu has it been possible to articulate the subtle forms of politics present in the aforesaid frameworks through words of poetry. In particular, it has been possible to render in poetic language the politics enforced on the female body by the age-old repressive structures of the caste system. Moreover, while not being directly a voice of propaganda, this articulation was also imbued with the aesthetics of language, literary richness and the formal elegance of poetry. It cannot be construed merely as an elucidation of what is referred to as “body politics” in western countries. Instead, it should be seen as a means of making the complex and subtle systems of power active in all of India a subject for public debate. Era. Meenakshi arrived during the initial phase of modernism in Tamil women’s poetry. Though her poetry expressed resistance to the traditional oppression of women, her poems constituted a new voice in the Tamil milieu. In the world anthology of poetry published in the 80’s, the lone Tamil poem included was Meenakshi’s. As the second phase, we can cite the period when the poems of Perundevi and Rishi began to be read widely. They wrote poems distilling poetic language and inherent theme into an experimental form. It may even be said that through their work, the language of Tamil poetry brought a kind of centrality to the new form. Perundevi

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and Rishi gained recognition as poets who, while challenging the poetic diction of contemporary writers of that period, functioned as part of the mainstream without claiming a separate identity. In the next phase, Tamil women’s poetry was dominated by poets who propounded the politics of the body. Among these, Sukirtharani, Salma, Malathi Maithri and Kutti Revathi gave expression in their poems to a voice that had perceived and grasped the repression practised on the body through religion and caste. Rising like an enormous wave, the impact of their advent led to much controversy, debate and criticism. These poets described in their poems, with unimpaired aesthetics and undiminished linguistic richness, body parts and the instances where these body parts became politicized. Poetry in this phase was besieged by opposition from all sides – Tamil nationalism, cultural police, media hostility, and even direct attacks from contemporary male Tamil writers. Even as it created a huge impact on the literary and intellectual planes, the creative output and contribution of women poets who came later continued this trend. In my view, the body politics of our society subjects to question all constructs of that society; and besides, it is completely divergent from the contours of the body politics being articulated in foreign countries. To understand, without missing the smallest nuance, the net cast over women is also a way to tear it apart. Ornamental discourses are only fit for a society that is steeped in luxury. Through our writing, we discovered that proscribed words, clandestine words and words denied are the ones that belong to communities of oppressed people. Our mission has also been to renew the prevalent age-old meanings of such words. It was under these circumstances that women’s poetry from Eelam emerged as an extension – as also the peak achievement – of Tamil women’s poetry. Women’s poetry from Eelam While doing research for this anthology, I was able to discover that a significant evolution of Tamil women’s poetry has occurred through poetry from Eelam. As for woman poets from Eelam, it was through Selvi and Sivaramani that Eelam poetry first made its advent in Tamilnadu. For very different reasons, both are no more among us. They were not alive even when their poems were first published as books. Sivaramani killed herself in 1991, at the age of twenty-three. The final phase of Selvi’s life remains an unsolved riddle. At the time of their appearance in Tamilnadu, their poems were read as the breath-tones of a people arrived from alien space. The identity of the Tamil woman from Eelam in those days was itself completely new and served as a pointer to the lives of the people of Eelam in that era. Irretrievable times A peaceful time of morning, The dawn’s red sky pleases the eye.

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Even a crow’s cawing sounds sweet. Through the spread of gardens, long and wide, Breeze floats in and hugs the body. Peace everywhere! Sweetness in everything! Until yesterday, It remained a peaceful time of morning. In the dark hour before dawn, Armoured vehicles thundered and roared. Voices of despair: “Ayyo! Amma!” Gardens shook and trembled. Seeing khaki uniforms all over, Our men grew frightened. Youths grabbed and herded Into the vehicles Floundered for breath. Mothers’ weeping And sisters’ sobbing Sounded like despair Of the day breaking. The crow’s cawing, too, sounded jarring. Even gentle sounds induced only fear. Fear everywhere; silence in everything. The light wind’s caress held no feeling We forgot to enjoy the morning’s red sky. Until yesterday, It had been a peaceful time of morning. The dread that this poem of Selvi’s had evoked in that period was the articulation of something unprecedented in the entire history of our language. Lines from Sivaramani’s “The stress of a night during wartime,” The stress of a night during wartime Will make adults Out of our children,

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And from her “Woman scorned,” I am someone who cannot be rejected. What now? I am present As a question That cannot ever be tossed aside represent a politics born of daring that shook up the end of the nineties. Though many others from Eelam came to writing poetry later, the Tamil poetry from Eelam that joined itself to the politics of women’s writing in Tamilnadu led – by means of the political causes it propounded, its language, diction and elegance of form – the arena of Tamil women’s poetry towards a new evolution, transcending in the process the politics of Tamil women’s poetry which had been enfeebled by a lack of appropriate media outlets to carry it to different strata of society. This happened, however, in the nineties. Because of the impact they created, the voice in these poems wove itself into poems then being written in Tamilnadu. Poems from Eelam which came after the advent of body politics in Tamil poetry continued the feminist articulation prevalent here and advanced it to the next phase. The works of Faheema Jahan, who writes from Sri Lanka, and those of exiled poets like Tamilnathy, Simonethi, Thillai and Bhanubharathi have emerged as political poems. They can be identified as the central voices of the present political struggle in Eelam, for there are no male creative writers in Eelam today who cast Eelam into a language of politics to the same degree as these poets. So, Tamil women’s poetry from Eelam of today surpasses that from Tamilnadu in all aspects: creative vigour, language, theme and modernity. Today, the only weapon they possess to oppose and fight against the politics of ethnic oppression they are subjected to is the poetry forged by these women. While selecting the poems from Eelam, it was impossible to contact the poets from Eelam because they are scattered in exile the world over. Moreover, there is generally an element of fright in their encounters with outsiders. For these reasons, it was difficult to get in touch with them for this anthology. Therefore, poems by Eelam poets have been selected taking into consideration all anthologies of Eelam poetry published so far. In particular, these poems have been selected from the following anthologies: “Sollada Seidigal (Unreported News)” (Women’s Research Circle, Jaffna, 1986); “Selvi Sivaramani Kavidaigal (Poems by Selvi and Sivaramani)”, (Vidiyal Padippagam, 1996); “Velicham Kavidaigal” (1996), an anthology of selected poems from Velicham magazine, published by the Arts & Cultural Centre of the LTTE, Jaffna; “Uyirveli” (Love poems by women, 1999); “Peyal manakkum podhu” (Poems by women poets from Eelam, 2007); “Iravil salanamatruk karaiyum manidargal (People dissolving silently overnight)” (Kalachuvadu Padippagam, Nagercoil, 2003); “Maraiyada Marupaadhi (The still-visible other half)” &

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“Ezhudaadha Un Kavidai (Your unwritten poem)” (Poems by women from Tamil Eelam, 2001), and Twentieth Century Eelam Poetry (2006). In addition, a few poems have been selected from anthologies of individual poets who have chosen poetry as the platform for their activism and have published collections shaped by their ideology, such as Faheema Jahan’s “Oru Kadal Neerootri” (Panikkudam Padippagam, Chennai, 2007); Anar’s “Enakku Kavidai Mugam” (Kalachuvadu Padippagam, Nagercoil, 2007); and Tamilnathy’s “Sooriyan thaniththalaiyum pagal” (Panikkudam Padippagam, Chennai, 2007). Journals such as Kaalam, Urakkappesu, Suvadugal, Exile, Iniyum Sool Kol and Matrubhoomi (Malayalam) have also been kept in mind while selecting poems for this anthology. After the Internet revolution, most poets from Eelam choose that medium as their

publishing

platform

and

feature

their

work

in

the

web

magazine,

Udaru

(http://www.udaru.com), which has also been a source of poems included herein. The voice of Eelam women’s poetry remains pluralist in nature. These poets have never flinched from articulating a politics that others have refused to broach, subtly and with skilled use of language. In this anthology, we have been able to create a document of this pluralist identity: considered for inclusion here are poets who were once fighters in the liberation movement; people who still live in that country, experiencing the scorching heat of war; poets from Maliayagam, the central highlands of Sri Lanka; and people who are living in exile in alien countries, writing poetry. Not only them, there are poets here, like Faheema Jahan and Anar, who, being of Islamic faith, could not therefore lay claim to the Tamil identity. Even so, these poets never foreground political partisanship or emotional politics in their poems. Instead, they highlight the need for a normal life and the losses suffered in their quest for such normalcy. The poems in this anthology by women poets from Eelam illuminate the universe of their lives from the vantage of diverse moments: painful reminders; images inured to the ‘normalcy’ of death; poems in which their illusions and dreams expand into a country; and, in particular, the world bequeathed to their children by that land. They transport us to that land, raising questions that cannot ever be tossed aside or ignored. If this anthology makes familiar to a reader hailing from other geographical regions of India, the sun and death-stench offered by the land of Eelam, it is not necessarily by design. Moreover, during the course of your reading, you will surely hear, by means of a random line somewhere in these pages, the voice of that island-country that would doubtless seem to you like the voice of a forsaken sister who, parted from us and quite alone, fights on in that distant land. Translated from the Tamil by N Kalyan Raman

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PART ONE: TAMIL WOMEN POETS FROM INDIA

Page 1 of 62

Part One: Tamil women poets from India List of Poems   S. No

Title

Author

Pages

1. The Fort and the Temple

Era. Meenakshi

3

2. A dream of reality

Malati (Satara)

4

3. Life Sport

Che. Brinda

5

4. Killing Field

Krushangini

6

5. Three poems

Perundevi

7

6. Far away

Rishi

9

7. Untitled

S. Sugandhi

11

Subramanian 8. Today’s show

Uma Maheshwari

12

9. Untitled

Thendral

13

10. A trustworthy few…

Ilampirai

15

11. The smile of aeons

Sukirtharani

16

12. One evening and another

Salma

17

13. Bringing the sea home

Malati Maithri

19

14. The demons that afflict us

Kutti Revathi

20

     

Page 2 of 62

The Fortress and the Temple Era. Meenakshi

This fortress, built by a king, is today but a dream’s dark shadow on the ground. His love gift and palace are now merely ragged hives. In the broken stone, parched grass, thorn bush cover and in the ashen white of burnt bamboo, beauty in ruins. A snake’s moulted skin in the dance hall. is this cold wind the tinkling of anklets? At the edge of the pathway to the headless spire, in the water channel down the stone steps, a nagalinga* petal’s coolness: transcending Time’s capers, Sivam has enshrined himself!

* Flower of cannonball tree, with petals shaped like a snake with its hood raised and stamen in the form of a lingam, incarnation of Lord Shiva

Page 3 of 62

 

A dream of reality Malathi (Satara)  

I had bought a house in my dream: second house on a narrow bustling street, with a pretty square yard in front for kolams. The house was somewhat old, the walls were sturdy. There were plenty of objects in the attic, along with secrets that troubled you always and mulberry moths. A staircase ended in a loft: open to sky, retriever of spring. There were defects in the toilets. I remember I had bought it after selling the string of black beads I’d been seeing very often in my dreams, along with a drop of my youthfulness. I had wanted very much to bring amma and show her. I don’t recall when I had the defects in the house repaired, but one day i gave it on rent to a woman. After forgetting entirely to collect the rent, I asked her last night in my dream. my husband collected it without fail every month, said the woman.

Page 4 of 62

 

Life Sport Che. Brinda This is a hide-and-seek game that can cause fatalities. You and i are the only players. You are as close to me as you are far away. You are my everything; you also mean nothing to me. Whenever you solicit my love as speech, a wordless, tongue-tied and unbearable silence is my reply. And my wait is tinged with mild scheming, the way a lizard hunts its prey, to make your whole attention shift towards me. I am a cruel beast. Believe it or not, my incisors and talons are made of love.

Page 5 of 62

   

Killing Field Krushangini Tall trees, cut down and stacked. Smeared along the trunks like scales on a snake and perching still as dullards, these butterflies are full of life. Logs dragged in by a machine are planed; then shaved down to a pile of sawdust. Another arm pulps the pile along with all the smeared lives, spreads the pulp to dry, joins and presses into a sheet, then ejects the paper. Laden with unrecorded murders, the square is spat out ‘dazzling’, spotless and white!  

Page 6 of 62

 

Three poems Perundevi 1. Loneliness that clings

Loneliness is a rivulet. A stunned droplet of water, trapped in the vortex of a whirlpool, will reach the riverbed and rise again: water’s condition never kills water, in accordance with its truth. Loneliness never kills the lonesome, for a lone woman is loneliness incarnate for at least one split second. ° The river’s sustenance: a piece of the moon tossed in by the sky. The river is its own begging bowl. ° On either bank of the rivulet, whether in the company of another or with none, the consolation of passing brief intervals of time: rare bathing ghats. ° The cry of the cicada is loneliness – will cling to anyone who hears it. ° Without raising her eyelids, a woman paddles her feet in the water. She is special: the river won’t drink her up.

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° As a throng flows the river. 2. Betrayal

From yeaning in vain for sleep to turn into a dreamless forest, sleep, too, was lost entirely. As the dark iris popped out and ran to watch another’s dream, vision, or something like it, began to move adrift like a white cloud above the forest denuded of trees. 3. Immutable

Crimson as the sun moves northward, white on its journey south – our lord in Thakkolam.* What colour is our Goddess? Of the kindness that wed her and led her to bloom. * In the Shiva temple in Thakkolam, a village near the Andhra Pradesh border, the Shiva deity changes colour depending on the direction of movement of the sun between summer and winter solstices

Page 8 of 62

 

A long way Rishi

A door-frame that blocks you when the head is raised even slightly. The room, a dark cavern where voices stand in for faces. A small village, made for bonsai feet; and a house where a country has become the world. Straying from my endless trudging around the oil-press, as i climbed onto the front pyol to breathe in the sun, moon, or perhaps the faint breeze under the crescent moon, that halo of light appeared on the far horizon. All the melodies sung by that light seemed sculpted by a chisel. It was hard to say if it was joy or mournful ululation or mating call or frenzied trumpeting or a unity of all these or a plurality even as that distant voice kept sounding in my ears. I began to move away from myself like a lemming behind the pied piper. As the halo, blazing, unattainable even in my dreams, raced faster and faster towards the horizon, and as i perspired with every breath, my legs turning to water as they tried to retreat, my unquenchable, thirsty heart leapt forward at a furious pace. On that galloping morning, the loner’s eyes smiled tactfully and tenderly

Page 9 of 62

from the blaze. As he, unable even to melt, turns into a black figurine, the one who had grabbed his hand and revived him could appear as a rainbow. The crying heart still cries: ‘Don’t descend without climbing up on feet that are both your own.’

Page 10 of 62

Untitled S. Sugandhi Subramanian The trail of shapes is indeed somewhat complex, the way a random image is painted from the colours chosen. Though the end is uncertain, for some reason the mind is hankering tirelessly for something When the self is revealed cruelly in sporadic visions of the truth, i feel paralyzed, robbed of all sensation. Even so, along with the trees and the sky that stretches and sprawls before me, I shall live on, counting the days that dawn solely for my sake, alone and on my own trail.

Page 11 of 62

 

Today’s Show Uma Maheshwari Tonight, too, let us perform on our bed, boiling over with unmet desires, today’s unaccounted show, without any departures from screen conventions. Mistaking the easy pathway you had built to be a royal boulevard, you ascertain the final halt as your moment of triumph. We can never reach that netherworld jungle of primitive ardour, the lone flower at the zenith blooming beyond the bushes, through quagmires camouflaged with adjustments, subterfuges, customs and compromises. There is nothing more to be done, beyond your falling asleep instantly with your back turned, the cold floor, the wall as refuge, and my heart’s torments, limp as a curled up cat.

Page 12 of 62

 

Untitled Thendral * Flowers carry whole forests within themselves: as a silent bud, winter; at the centre of an open petal whispering of nectar, season of rain; parching all colour, summer; then, when the petals are shed, one by one, autumn. This, the forest that dwells inside a lone flower. * Quite needlessly, this ant is crawling across a page of my book; even if only at the margin, it’s as annoying as errant letters moving across the page. I haven’t moved to the next page yet, but this ant has, as if of dire need.

Page 13 of 62

Doesn’t seem so innocent either, to warrant sympathy. What can I do? Some things are done without forethought. Its head is now sticky as a dented printing error.

Page 14 of 62

 

A trustworthy few… Ilampirai To the portia buds I wailed about my choking agonies. As they bloomed and spread, I heard and was moved by their soothing words. I told the crow perched on the antenna of my woes. It cawed…and flew away, sharing in my grief. I confessed, looking into the cat’s marble eye. ‘I’m here for you.’ Tail grazing my arm, it drew near and sat close. I dropped the hibiscus i was wearing in the river’s water. Making it dash against my feet, the river stopped the flower. ‘Pick it up and dry your eyes.’ I cried my heart out to the room, replete with memories…and the wind. It made me write poetry. I might have left it that, without confiding in you…

Page 15 of 62

The Smile of Aeons Sukirtharani   Garland of kuvalai* with its petals intact draped across the chest, and the white smoke of frankincense rises from the hair. Broad shoulders adorned with drawings of sugarcane and vine glitter from a coat of sandal paste. Gentle tooth marks sink into a high, nubile breast. She feeds him, mixing white rice in the golden bowl. Two children play in the courtyard paved with polished black stone. Lust spent, a man is walking in from afar with ruined grace. Once near, he lays a firm hand on the casuarina gate, and searches with his eyes. Her feet, bereft of anklets, mock his need. As her twin breasts shudder, there flashes, on her lips, the smile of aeons. *Kuvalai: a blue flower that opens only at night

Page 16 of 62

One evening and another Salma 1. Another evening slips withered into the crevice of loneliness Legs too weak to scale the walls walk around in the dark of the inner chambers. In the heat of breaths exhaled by the room’s neat arrangements rises the pungent odour of sulphur. There is no second opinion on the futility of the attempt to excavate and thaw dreams long frozen. There could be species in this universe that live in pleasure, subsisting only on their prey and conjugal courtesies. The succession of tense nights and the child’s restless whines will turn into a source of mockery about me. 2. This existence is complicated like the life of a cat

Page 17 of 62

that hides in the kitchen. A thick layer of cream has formed on the tea waiting to be drunk. its burnt smell is hounding me. In the drawing rooms full of human bustle, there’s no one with whom i might strike an acquaintance. Solitude in the bathroom creates fear, stemming from revulsion over nakedness. Houses erected inside cages swell their hustle and bustle solely to frighten me In the gardens raised within walls, there’s no shade in which to sit and rest. Nor is privacy ensured by the open spaces of the terrace upstairs. There’s no seat on which to sit comfortably, dangling one’s feet. If my child loaned me her cradle, sleep might become possible.

Page 18 of 62

 

Bringing the sea home Malathi Maithri By means of its traces, the sea is walking about in this house: A child’s unwashed dress hanging on the clothesline, reeking of the ocean’s smell; a sand pile moved away to a corner; conch-shells that rattle suddenly while you’re looking for something. Like the sand that clings to your fingers when you put a hand inside your pocket, a painter’s unwashed bowls of pigments, the sea stays back with everyone. The house sways amidst the waves – like a rowboat in anchor.

Page 19 of 62

   

The demons that afflict us Kutti Revathi   Sister...like potters, let’s fashion many more breasts now, when breasts brought to life by stoning and at knife-point are also being consumed. There are no fences to protect these, now the world’s newest food grains. Why are vultures engaged in the plunder of grain? Eating the sun, enjoying and breathing in the open space, the old woman’s breasts hang down like demons that afflict her, pushing against her chest. Those demons, too, are but boundary maps of a dried up history. So, sister, we shall not turn breasts that once were water ponds to quench our thirst into vessels for unending agony. We’ll turn them into stone someday and fling them away using slings. We’ll roam about, at least with a lone breast, carrying the weight of our sun.

Page 20 of 62

PART TWO: TAMIL WOMEN POETS FROM EELAM

Page 21 of 62

Part Two: Tamil women poets from Eelam List of Poems   S. No

Title

Author

Pages

1. Poem

Nila

23

2. A rain-sketch

Salani

24

3. Substance

Mythili

25

4. A string of memories

Bamini

26

5. Raining stars

Meera Balaganesan

28

6. The stress of a night during wartime

Sivaramani

29

7. Forenoon, when my youngsters nap

Tamilnathy

31

8, A few additional blood-notes

Anar

33

9. The death of a butterfly

Simonethi

34

10. The Mannamperis

Aazhiyaal

36

11. The ant and the blaze

Banubarathi

38

12. Breasts hung upside down

Thillai

39

13. Reality

Naamagal

40

14. Again, another dawn

Premini Sundaralingam

42

15. Irredeemable times

Selvi

43

16. In the dark

Banubarathi

44

17. The sun

Faheema Jahan

45

18. A near-illegible memory

Thillai

47

19. The Shadow

Penniya

49

20. Done for by war

Paamathi

50

21. In scorched earth, my root shall spread

Sudhamathi

52

22. Nothing shall make her yield

Malaimagal

54

23. I was there again

Mallika

55

 

Page 22 of 62

   

Poem Nila Conceived out of the blue, making its presence felt now and again through mild pangs of pain as it abrades gently from inside the heart-womb. Some nights, when sleep has spurned me and only memories have blossomed to keep me company, it smiles gently from a blank white sheet’s wide expanse: my darling child, a poem.

Page 23 of 62

A rain-sketch Calani   The sky has let the fine particles of rain spread on every one of its patches. I face the cold pervading the air with the sound of boots scraping and moving on in the distance—like a mendicant. Now the rain begins to touch the edges of my mirror. Once too lazy to break and throw away the rain’s frames, now i let myself spread gradually over its whole expanse. After releasing me from the shards of time, the mirror loses me to the rain. Its traces turn into lines…forming a shape …that becomes you…a rain-sketch Arms outstretched, your smile spills down with the rain – now there’s no rain across the whole mirror; it’s you.

Page 24 of 62

 

Substance Mythili The long, sultry night hangs heavy, making insects groan under the strain. On the weak flutter of a breeze arrives the faint blare of a neighbour’s radio. In the heavy grip of a pair of hands, the body is crushed: pressed down, sweat pouring out; and strained by rough caresses. Even the kissing is intense, like the way he scribbles with his pen on empty sheets; severely combs his hair with his personal brush; or carefully handles the razor while shaving his beard. All done, he sleeps peacefully beside me. My love and tenderness, all the gentle, soothing emotions through all these days, now drained in the face of a hard, swollen penis, lie spilt and congealed on the floor below.

   

Page 25 of 62

 

A string of memories… Bamini Hills stretch endlessly on the far horizon under a blanket of white snow. Flowers mark the onset of summer with ornamental patterns. The midnight sun, even as it hounds the long night, halts to watch the fun. Breakers shatter the peace of the bottomless ocean as they seek the shoreline; from its secret hideout, a crimson sun eavesdrops on their elegant banter with the sandy beach. The night rolls the red ball to a perplexed state, before locking it up to commence its reign. Shorn of its colours, amber and green, the kingdom of plants is in mourning over a friend’s departure. Clasped by the night, white snowflakes string patterns lavishly on the ground.

Page 26 of 62

The white moon strolls in a street pageant in the company of silver nuggets. I had to leave behind the islands off our shores, endowed all at once with these many splendours. It was in the capital, lost to nature and overrun by machines, that i was forced to squander my days. To what purpose…?

Page 27 of 62

Raining Stars Meera Balaganesan It was drizzling. A little boy sat gazing at the sky. Droplets from the drizzle sprayed down on him. The sun began to fade away. Except for the boy, everyone stayed in their respective homes. He remained gazing at the sky as if he’d never, ever set eyes on it before. Suddenly, something fell on his head. He screamed in pain – for a rain of stars was pouring down on him.

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The stress of a night during wartime Sivaramani The stress of a night during wartime will make adults out of our children. Because of every blood-soaked, faceless human corpse that’s hurled across the passage of their mornings lovely as a tiny sparrow’s and the smashed ramparts falling on their lively laughter, our little boys have ceased to be little boys. The report of a lone gun on a star-lit night, smashing the silence and exploding, reduced to naught the meaning of all children’s stories. And in the brief daytime remaining, they forgot how to make chariots from thorn apple seeds or to play hopscotch. To shut the wicket gate before nightfall, to recognize any unusual barking of the dogs, to refrain from asking questions and to remain silent when the question had no reply – later, in herd-like fashion, they learnt it all. Wantonly ripping out a moth’s wings and turning staves and twigs into guns to kill a friend, thinking of him as the enemy,

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became our children’s sport. Amidst the stress of a night during wartime, our children had turned into “adults.”

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Forenoon, when my youngsters nap Tamilnathi Chennai. 10:30 am. As the sun’s rays climb, dappled with swirling golden motes, these boys in their twenties are fast asleep. At first, I had only wanted rudely to snap and throw away the strand joining their dreams together, raising my voice to sound like a vessel clattering noisily to the floor. The younger one lying prone, dribble streaking a corner of his mouth, is made of many colours: as he utters the name of his beloved, madhula, his eyes bloom on a bed of deep scarlet. We found the portia trees – beside the spot where the angel chilled by cauldrons lay buried – teeming with yellow flowers. “Emerald,” he called the sea he had sighted on his passage here by boat. “Blood,” he whispered later, diffidently. Evenings, when love tossed the breakers in, I saw them both – he with Darkness – always seated together on a stone bench at the edge of the shoreline. The other one, though, having lost his way in a foreign country, wanders aimlessly, carrying wherever he goes a land

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replete with fertile fields, kingfishers and eddying surges of water in streams. The boy who got here last month is adept at silences. As he confided, “They kicked us, akka,” his fingers trembled like leaves in the rain. In conversation, he hurried past the moment when he had panicked and torn off a bit of flesh still stuck to his body. But the girl who was brought here with me possesses a heart as soft as the hairs on the underbelly of a beloved cat. In front of a fire which incinerates the model papers of tests she could not take, she daily sings dirges for her lost life. Near the beach in Thiruvanmiyur, the breakers talk about children uprooted from homes blessed with neem trees and koels. I now have five children who are still alive, a few memories and some cash. Everyone is talking about it: there is a war on in Sri Lanka.

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A few additional blood-notes Anar Though used to seeing blood regularly every month, I am still shocked and flustered when my child runs to me howling with a slashed finger. As though I am seeing it now for the first time, this blood, expressing helplessness, craves my compassion – and distress. Blood from a raped woman, though, might grow cold and drip like the revolting blood from a dead wasp’s carcass; or flow in the sticky, moist colour of her life. Blood pours from the body of a murdered child quite silently, quite innocently. Those who shed the most blood and those who caused the most bloodshed on the battlefield have been honoured by our leaders, promoted to high positions. Feelings of the supplicant human soul under intense punishment have hurled themselves and shattered on the blood-stained walls of torture camps. The blood scent of vengeance, the blood stench of predation, the same blood that congeals on the crazed streets, the same blood that has seeped and dried on the walls of mausoleums— as death’s indelible traces, they stalk me endlessly.

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Death of a Butterfly Simonethi   Today I saw a column of ants dragging along the carcass of a butterfly. With its ruined green and black wings, it remained beautiful even in death. Earlier – as it flitted about, fluttering its wings – it must have looked even more delightful. God knows whose dear child it was – now these ants marched in a procession, dragging its fragile wings. People who’d known it earlier said: it had clear ideas and a mighty heart; it had once escaped even the clutches of vultures racing across the white sky; it had flown away once, eluding a lizard’s tongue by a hair’s breadth – there were many such tales. They somehow captured and dragged away a creature so clever. They crushed it, ripping out its wings; killed it, stomping on its brains with shoe-clad feet; slammed its rib cage a thousand times with clubs; reduced it to an orphan’s corpse lying by the road. Once dead, it was captured by the ants. Drooling spittle from the mouth, the ants investigated its history;

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split again and again to fight among themselves over who should eat it first, only to unite later. This was how that lovely butterfly which was dragged along came to be eaten by the ants.

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The Mannamperis Aazhiyaal I’ve spotted it many a morning – beside roadside fences, in the open-air markets set up at road-junctions, and often during my travels. Dog, bear, wolf vulture, cat, bull – it assumes many guises. It lingers near the telegraph pole, a hind leg raised, gazing at me. It must be many days since that animal last slept. Its eyes revealed those Of an unfamiliar beast. Their desert hunger Made me aware Of an alien language within me. Sensing that it must be the harsh language understood by Mannamperi, the beauty, and her comrade, Koneshwari, I strode past hurriedly. While I slept that night, haunted by the day’s fruitless travels and pent-up feelings, I too understood the same –

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the very same – language that had been thrust deep into both girls. My husband’s lying beside me now, his breath relaxed and cool.     •

Mannamperri (22): Participated in the Janata Vimukthi Perumana uprising of 1971. Led the women’s division. On April 16, 1971 she was captured by the military, subjected to rape and then killed.

•

Koneshwari (33): Belonged to Colony No. 1 of Ambarai Central Camp. On May 17, 1997, the army visited her home, where they raped her and then exploded a grenade thrust in her vagina before leaving. 

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The ant and the blaze Banubarathi After what the dogs and jackals carried away and what the evil spirits took away, a few bits of bone and some embers were left on the ground. Let us bury them in the Indian Ocean, some declared. Let us bury them deep inside the earth for the archeologists, suggested many others. I said: let us safeguard them till we hand them over to the next generation. Now these few and those many others expressed their wish to bury me. One thing, at least, was clear: to bury something somewhere was all they knew.

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Breasts hung upside down Thillai From a nail on my body, they strung up nourishing breasts, along with several hundreds of vaginas. Eyes brimming with life, the women of my country shut their nostrils and inhaled the ocean leapt across by three generations. Then they rinsed and washed clothes and bodies on which the blood had dried. Women of all ages reported the names of their husbands at the fenced-in workshop, receiving white garments in return. Even this morning, they had strung up On me the breasts and vaginas Of yet another thirty-three thousand women. Where are you going, I asked them. To draw white garments from the camp at the village border, they said.

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Reality Naamagal It transpired in only a second, perhaps even less; anticipated by none. Those who were crossing that junction; those who sat inside the tea stall; and those who had queued up to buy kerosene – past them all and right in front of the boy, the explosion went off. No planes overhead: only a shell, then. He rose once in the air before crashing to the ground. he made no sound; he must have died before he could think of screaming. In the noise of the explosion, his screams might have gone unheard too – can’t say anything for certain. People moved away. Suddenly, even the song from the radio

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in the tea stall had ceased. In the empty, deserted street, he was lying all alone. A severed arm lay on the far side of the road with its fingers extended, as if accusing someone. Only a few minutes later— An ambulance arrived, grabbed everything, sped away. As debris, there remained a little of his blood, one or two spokes from a bicycle’s wheel, some fragments of the exploded shell – that was all. Vehicles hurried past, erasing even those remnants from the street. On the road, there is nothing left now; everything is as before. The kerosene queue has grown longer. In the tea stall, too, a new song has commenced. People are hurrying forward as if nothing ever happened.

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Again, another dawn Premini Sundaralingam The unsightly fangs of cruel vehicles scoured every inch of the dark land. On the slopes of Planet Earth, yet again a spurt of blood. Only the old man Chinnappu’s petty shop lay crumbled to the ground. The banyan, shooting up from a crack on the well’s parapet had shed its leaves, too, to wither and die. On the back of the reeds lying on fallow land, memory’s traces of that brutal imprint. Plantain trees, pregnant with bunches of fruit, lay face down. Their offspring, throwing up shoots, stood keenly upright. The very young fighter’s smiling face showed on a small piece of stone on the broken ramparts.

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A morning where all sound had ceased dawned slowly – yet again.

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Irretrievable times Selvi A peaceful time of morning: the dawn’s red sky pleases the eye. Even a crow’s cawing sounds sweet. Through the spread of gardens, long and wide, breeze floats in and hugs the body. Peace everywhere! Sweetness in everything! Until yesterday, it had remained a peaceful time of morning. In the dark hour before dawn, armoured vehicles thundered and roared. Voices of despair: “Ayyo! Amma!” Gardens shook and trembled. Seeing khaki uniforms all over, our men grew frightened. Youths grabbed and herded into the vehicles struggled to breathe. Mothers’ weeping and sisters’ sobbing sounded like despair of the day breaking. The crow’s cawing, too, sounded jarring. Even gentle sounds induced only fear. Fear everywhere; silence in everything. The light wind’s caress held no feeling. We forgot to enjoy the morning’s red sky. Until yesterday, it had been a peaceful time of morning.

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In the dark Banubarathi Something must’ve gone amiss last night. Today’s dawn and morning lay inert like a corpse, bereft even of death’s whimper. A frosty wind came bearing the whiff of fat melting over a fire and sprinkled it on the streets. It’s not daybreak yet, it’s not daybreak yet – cawed—no, wailed—one or two stray crows, through the leaves of a shade-grown tree. On the ground beneath the shade-grown tree, neem seeds plant their fledgling roots firmly and look up at the top of the tree to ask the sunlight scattering itself through its branches: “When will the day break?’ The crows on the highest branches keep up their senseless refrain: the day has not dawned yet.

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The Sun Faheema Jahan   The sun is descending peremptorily in the space left vacant by a tree that’s been cut down and carted away. A random shadow relocates the aged animal – seated restfully on the ground, gently working its jaws – in one direction every morning; and in another, in the evening. The sun, which leads the birds of autumn from one country to another, brings them back, careful not to throw in disarray the navigation charts for the trip the sky has safely preserved. The sun, which waits hesitantly outside palace gates, returns in high dudgeon to the courtyards of the poor. The daughter, orphaned in her motherland, travels in search of a sanctuary, while a different strain of sunlight, given to hounding shadows, follows behind her. With an uneasy heart, the sun passes this island which will never run dry of tears,

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sucking up the moisture and leaving the blood stains be. After sundown, that sprawling jungle begins, its hair untied and loose, to roam the streets all over, taking along all the animals in hiding until then.

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A near-illegible memory Thillai Laments over a life stranded on the other side of the river dangled like droplets along the jaw line. No sooner than they reached, in hazy rendering, the town’s ears, the tension in the air was eased. Suffering the bedlam of a human head lying on the road which cut across the paddy field, lined on either side by coconut trees; the soreness of a cheek dented by the impress of fingers; and the choking of breath from battered lungs and lower ribs, a voice trembled and trembled before it collapsed. They… snatched the floor on which we sat, suspended it in mid-air, and dredging our ponds and lakes, dumped garbage in the craters… The trash burned, reeking of charred firewood and smoke, through which wafted the rank odour of their lives. More and more hair congealed inside pools of blood, reaching, finally, the tip of my tongue.

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My thirst subsided the next instant, Turning quickly to ash.

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The Shadow Penniya    Letting memories remain where they lie, the shadow rises, moves on. Down all the avenues where the shadow roams, the stench of memories trails the shadow like a memory of death. Memories last longer in the latrine at home and on bedsheets. Inside the dark blanket of perishable time, memory, innocent even of the shadow, weeps constantly.

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Done for by war Paamathi On all the lands that you and I must traverse from tomorrow, only our national flag will remain. With trash heaps over spots where babies and thistles have been buried together, my country has become a jungle of corpses. Is it in the eyes of that crazed dog, battened on human flesh, that i must look for my comrades’ nationalist ferour? Is it among thousands of these tombstones that i must celebrate my freedom? Grant reprieve. Let one human survive at least. Grant reprieve also to a blood-filled pen so that it may write of my land ruined by war to bring us awareness of human love. On flowers that bloomed this morning, their pollens, I must write of bloody sorrows scabbed over in the night; and of blind men crazed with lust for state power and lethal arms. It’s time for a new world to be born. We need a community where all arms have been interred and death sentences have surpassed murders; which propounds only that equality which is full of human decency and innocent of racial difference—

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such a world must arise. How were we done for in this war? What did we lose? What did we gain? On the walls lining our streets, we must set down the history of these heinous men.

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In scorched earth, my root will spread Sudhamathi I remember still – that these people asleep like orphans under the tree’s canopy once owned a beautiful home. Yes, I do still remember those full moon nights when all our kin had gathered in the moon-lit courtyard, recounting stories, our hearts filled with joy. On a morning when shoe-flowers bloomed, wide-eyed and radiant, we shared bonds with the koels cavorting in our village and the butterflies fluttering their wings all over the fecund green fields. Our roots kept growing in the untainted air, in the soil nurtured by dreams: we were a country intact. “O spring, fled so remote now from us! O life, which can never be shaped by words!” From behind a peace rendered into a graveyard’s silence, resounds my lone, powerful voice. Tongues of flame have devoured the shady spots that gave us peace, along with sanctuaries. How had the splendour of this land, alive beneath our childhood memories, been disfigured so? – it abrades our memories like a festering wound. The plaintive song emerging from our vocal chords echoes on the walls of our ruined city; crawls across fields where ears of ripe grain

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have been burnt to ash; and cuts through streets of red earth marked by our footprints and by small, thatched huts covered in shade. I shall sing loudly, holding my rifle aloft … for as long as my blood’s pulse-beat lasts…

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Nothing shall make her yield Malaimagal The rain came down in sheets, as if the sky had been rent asunder. Engulfing the levee, too, it moved forward in giant strides. A girl was darning a pair of pants, torn and worn out from sessions of hard training. Threading a needle, she said softly: the sky, too, is in tatters. As soon as i am done with these, i’ll also sew up and mend that tear. Holding up the barn’s roof – near collapse with the ground sodden and the poles damp – the next one murmured: poor people of our land – they’ll be drenched, all of them. Rain-soaked canvas beret weighing heavily on her head, body drenched along with her weapon, teeth chattering in the cold, that brave woman staring askance from behind a tree’s cover at the enemy’s camp hasn’t budged an inch. She shall never budge even if, in addition to the torrents of rain, enemy forces inundate her land… She will triumph.

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I was there again Mallika Indeed, everything was fine… Even better than in the sweet old days: no more clashes over land and circumstance. People lived there happily, in their own land. “Yes, they have done it all right.” They have stopped the war. “Enough, enough of this deadly war,” so indeed have they averred. Jaffna, too, was normal, they said, I could travel there again. The Jaffna Goddess plied as usual. No congestion; no queues, either: I could find myself a seat near the window. The trip was sweet even in the heat. Everywhere I turned looked fine indeed. After getting down, I felt that everything belonged to me. See, what a vast difference this peace (cease-fire) can make! When everything becomes easy, when all is within a hand’s reach, isn’t it like heaven on earth? No division of castes and religions. With plenty of food available to eat, there is no hunger, grief or disease. As it rains heavily all the time, there is no sadness -no sadness in farmers’ hearts. There is no shortage of onions, chillies or any type of vegetable.

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None of these are taxed, either. I went on a trip to the ruined city. I saw many temples on the way. Who said there was a war in this fair land? Everything shone with customary beauty. At the gates of the Jaffna Library, I greeted Reverend Father Long. “Nothing here has been burned down,” said the priest, his head erect. I then went to Veerasingam Hall. They had rebuilt it so that it could never be demolished again. At a meeting of women in the hall that day, I was glad to meet so many friends. Fatima was there – with Ziddi and Naeema, too. “We are back again, in our own land,” said Sakeema, a smile playing on her lips. Santhini was glad to see me “How are the women faring?” I asked. “It’s a fortunate time for us all,” she said. “We are respected as women. That should make us proud, right?’ She loudly declared. Selvi was busy with arrangements for the meeting. Sivaramani was to read a poem of hers. “When you see women being granted equality, honour and compassion, along their own identity, there’s such happiness in our hearts!” A voice echoed my own thoughts. I turned: Rajini stood there, Dazzling as ever in her radiance. My gladness overflowing, I couldn’t even shout. I woke up:

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What I had seen was but a dream.

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Notes of women poets from Tamilnadu Era. Meenakshi – A resident of Auroville in Pondicherry, she is active in several fields such as  rural development, social work, teaching and translation.  Malati (Satara) – Imbued with the intense possibilities of language, her poetry represents a  serious articulation of feminism, She passed away several years ago.  Che. Brinda – A poet who gives centrality to women in the life of the middle class, she never  fails to document the aesthetics of that life.  Krushangini – Her poems are animated by aspects of the visual arts. She lives in Chennai.  Perundevi – A poet who has continuously experimented with the language of poetry,  she too  has contributed from the initial phase of modern literature in Tamil.  Rishi – A poet who has been active since the initial stage of modern literature in Tamil, she has  translated several works of foreign literature into Tamil.  Sugandhi Subramaniam – A  pioneer of Tamil feminist poetry.  Later beset by psychiatric  illness, she died recently in Thiruppur at the age of 42.  Uma Maheswari – She is a writer who handles diverse literary forms such as poetry, novel and  the short story with great skill and excellence.  Thendral – A poet who presents with great clarity moments of liveliness from general plane of  living, she works as a computer software expert in Chennai.  Ilampirai – In her poems, she transcribes rural images as seen through the eyes of women into  words. Works as a teacher in Chennai.  Sukirtharani – Known as the pioneering symbol of Dalit feminist poetry in Tamil, she works as a  Tamil teacher in Ranipet.  Salma – Chairperson of the Tamilnadu Social Welfare Board, she has used the novel format  also to make the dark sides of Muslim society in Tamilnadu a subject for public debate.  Malathi Maithri – Involved in the movement to secure civil rights for fisherwomen’s  communities, she plays a major role in shaping contemporary Tamil feminist poetry’s  evolution.  Kutti Revathi – Editor of the Tamil feminist journal, Panikkudam, she works as a practitioner of  Siddha medicine in Chennai. 

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Notes on women poets from Tamil Eelam Nila – A  Lankan poet who started publishing her work in the late eighties.  Calani – A poet from the Tamil Muslim community, she is currently resident in Sri Lanka  Baamini / Mythili – Bamini Chelladurai emigrated from Sri Lanka to Australia, where she is  currently resident. She has authored a book titled, ‘Sidariya Siddharthan (Scattered  Siddharthan).’ She also writes under the pseudonyms, Mythili and Kotravai.  Meera Balaganesan – a poet who is currently resident in Sri Lanka.  Sivaramani  –  A  poet  who  had  set  fire  to  all  her  writings  before  killing  herself,  Sivaramani  is  understood to have taken this decision in anger against the movements of that time. She was a  university student, graduate student of External Studies.  Tamilnathy – Currently living in exile in Canada, Tamilnathy  has published two collections of  her poetry.  Anaar – Lives in Akkaraipattu in the eastern province of Sri Lanka. A poet from the Tamil  Muslim community of Sri Lanka.  Simonethi – A pre‐eminent exponent of modern Tamil poetry from Eelam, Simonethi lives in  exile. She continues to publish her work through the udaru web‐site (udaru.blogdrive.com)  Aazhiyaal – Currently living in exile in Norway. A graduate of Peradeniya University near Kandy  town in Sri Lanka  Banubharathi – Working as a post office employee in Norway, she also runs a little magazine  in Tamil called, ‘Uyir Mei.’  Thillai – Currently resident in Switzerland, Thillai used to work with Surya, a woman’s  organization operating out of Batticaloa in eastern Sri Lanka. She had also worked as a  journalist; fled to exile in Switzerland after her colleague, journalist Sivaram was killed.  Naamagal – Hails from Theevagam – Allaippitti in north Sri Lanka; writes poems and short  stories.  Premini Sundaralingam – Premini hails from Ariyaalai in the Jaffna province of Sri Lanka;  started writing in the nineties.  Selvi – It is now seventeen years since Selvi was arrested on August 31, 1991 by Liberation  Tigers and went missing thereafter. Selvi was born in Semmadu in Vavunia. She was also a  student of theatre arts in the University of Jaffna. Apart from staging several plays, she was  also a poet. International PEN, the worldwide association of writers had awarded Selvi its  Special Prize for the year 1992.  Faheema Jahan – Resident of Melsipura town in Sri Lanka,  Faheema Jahan is an poet from the  Tamil Muslim community in Sri Lanka. Has published a collection titled, ‘Oru Kadal Neerootri  (Pouring an ocean’s water).’  

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Paamathi – Currently living in exile in Australia.  Mallika – A poet who started writing in the nineties, she currently lives in exile in France (as  reported in France Ilakkiya Sandippu Malar).  Sudhamathi – A rebel‐fighter and poet of the Liberation Tigers’ movement, she writes short  stories as well, along with poems.  Malaimagal – A rebel‐fighter in the liberation movement, in charge of the training wing; also  holds the position & rank of Deputy Commander. She has written short stories, essays and a  book on rebel‐fighters’ diaries.  _____ 

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Notes on Contributors Kutti Revathi (Selection of poems, Introduction)  Kutti  Revathi  (real  name:  S.  Revathi),  35,  is  the  author  of  poetry  collections,  “Poonaiyai  Pol  Alaiyum  VelichamI  (2000)”,  “Mulaigal  (2002)”,  “Thanimaiyin  Aayiram  Irakkaigal  (2003)  and  “Udalin  Kadavu  (2006)”;  and  “Kalathai  Cherikkum  Viddhai  (2009).  She  is  also  the  editor  of  Panikkudam, a magazine for women’s literature. Thismagazine documents literary conversations  held  with  creative  writers  active  in  the  area  of  modern  literature  as  well  their  intellectual  concerns.  In  addition,  Revathi  also  publishes  literary  works  by  women  through  Panikkudam  Padippagam, a publishing firm founded by her, jointly with Aazhi Padippagam. Kutti Revath is a  practitioner of Siddha medicine, currently based in Chennai.  N Kalyan Raman (Translator)  N Kalyan Raman, 57, is a translator of contemporary Tamil fiction and poetry. His works include  three volumes of fiction by Ashokamitran: The Colours of Evil (1998), a collection of short stories;  Sand & other stories (2002), a volume of three novellas (jointly with Gomati Narayan); and Mole!  (2004), a novel. He has also translated a novel by Vaasanthi, published as At the Cusp of Ages in  2008. His translation of contemporary Tamil fiction & poetry has been featured in Kavya Bharati,  Poetry  International,  The  Little  Magazine  as  also  in  several  anthologies  of  Indian  language  literatures in translation. Kalyan Raman teaches at the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai.  Malavika PC (Illustrations)  Malavika, 27, is an illustrator and graphic designer based in Chennai. She also does theater and  performance  work  for  a  theatre  collective  in  Chennai.  Malavika  has  done  cover  and  other  illustrations for leading publishers, including drawings for children’s books. She writes a column  for  a  city  magazine  and  has  produced  educational  material  for  AIDINDIA,  a  leading  non‐profit  organization.   

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