Welcome to our October-November double issue!
As India shifts gears from a rural, economically backward country to a dynamic economy with an increasingly educated and urban population, the divisions between the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the city dwellers and the rural folk, have deepened. The four writers featured in this issue mine these fissures, and look into the hypnotic vortex of Indian society as it churns to accommodate these changes. The Morning Star by Palagiri Viswaprasad recounts the story of a young woman trying to escape the brutal caste politics in rural India, an unending cycle of reprisal killings. Yaatra by Turaga Janaki Rani is a poignant account of a lower middle-class man’s longing for small pleasures, as he watches the new found affluence of India bypass large chunks of society. Athaluri Vijayalakshmi despairs at the urban trend of replacing greenery and single homes with Nehruvian matchboxes in The Gardener. Our final story Vigilantes by P Sathyavathi dissects the fear of change that drives the old-school traditionalists to desperately tighten their hold on the younger generation, only to irrevocably widen the cultural chasm.
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Happy Reading!
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The following translations are courtesy of the staff of Literary Voices of India™.
The Morning Star: There are two Indias, one India that just sent an unmanned rocket to the moon, and the other predominantly rural India where faction politics and revenge killings are a way of life. Palagiri Viswaprasad’s The Morning Star is a frightening look into this world as witnessed by a young woman trying to desperately break free.
Yaatra: In large parts of the world, men and women spend their entire lives longing for simple pleasures that are taken for granted in affluent parts of the globe. A sofa, a dining table, a proper bed – small luxuries. In Yaatra by Turaga Janaki Rani, the protagonist comes upon a large sum of money at the time of his retirement due to a change in pay scales. But fulfilling his simplest of material wishes proves surprisingly heart wrenching.
The Gardener: The migration of the Indian population from the countryside to urban centers has resulted in the inevitable pressure on land and other resources. At one time, single homes with small but dense gardens of sapota, mango, coconut and temple trees, with fragrant jasmine creepers and livid hibiscus bushes, dominated the scene. They have been replaced by concrete monstrosities of gaudy colors and Orwellian monotony. The hero of The Gardener by Athaluri Vijayalakshmi is an aging gardener, symbolic of these vanishing ancient gardens. His dismay at the readiness of his affluent young employers to exchange the beauty of nature for shiny gadgets is a rebuke to the irresponsible devastation of land by individuals and corporations alike.
Vigilantes: by P. Sathyavathi is a sharply observed commentary on societal relations in India. Everyone is eyebrow deep in everyone else’s business, offering advice, delivering judgment and meddling in every possible way. The older generation is particularly guilty, as it tries to maintain control over a new generation by clinging harder than ever to traditional family hierarchies and gender roles. The younger generation is often better educated, better informed and better paid, and inexorably claims its independence. The resulting conflict leaves many damaged lives in its wake, on both sides of the generational divide.
