Working her will on our literary palates

Contrapuntal and Other Stories by Parvathi Solomons Arasanayagam. Godage International Publishers, Colombo, 2006 – pp. 280.

Reviewed by Carl Muller

Parvathi Solomons Arasanayagam is an exceptional writer. She has given us, in certain measure, her talents as a poet; but in reading this latest collection of her short stories, I can almost see her, head raised, listening to that other murmur in the air– a voice that goes beyond the quivering shades of everyday life; passion that absorbs sentiment; the face of suffering that scorns abjection, and out of her brilliant mind come new literary directions that not only confirm but also intensify.

One sees this collection as her personal quest. So many ingredients are tossed in that one wonders how she manages and mentally disciplines them all: the blessed household voices; the wild silvery tones that rang through brighter days and are now stilled; quenchless longings; shadows rising in the silent hours; fears of torture and the chain; and her banner that proclaims that these are the times when the charged heart must speak or forever lie fast in the hush of fear.

As the Preface outlines, Parvathi “voices the concerns of her generation… she speaks for the fringe people, the outsiders, the strengths her personal need for survival in a world that does not offer comfortable or predictable choices… Her narratives... are deeply investigative and exploratory… revelatory of the human condition...”

Allow me to give you a picture of this writer, maybe an incursion into her personality. To grasp the impact of her writings, it is necessary to better know this young woman of graceful mien and precocious talents. She exudes an air of amiability, a quiet gentleness, a sort of confiding candour. She is a great lover of nature, possesses a memory of startling retentiveness... and she has suffered much. I will not tell you of the manner in which she has had to undergo the mental anguish of rejection, and of how she had to resign herself to the biting sarcasm and corrupt stance of those who refused to acknowledge her extraordinary talents. It was to me – who tried to bring about a reasoning of spirit – so fraught an exercise. It was as though, many in their limpest shells, who thought themselves to be the be-all and end-all of her literary existence, simply waited for this particular leaf to fall; this flower to wither under their evil north – wind breath; this star to set and leave an unmarked void.

Ah, but Parvathi, charged with the fierce, raging blood of her mother, her father, continues to walk in Fate’s mystic pathway; determined to clothe her heart even if memory still makes it bleed. This is one flower-stem that will not break and, I tell you, she will go on, crowding our moments with a poetic and literacy sense that no pangs can break.

Having said so much, let me now turn to the collection she offers us. As we see, they are all open-ended, challenging the reader to concoct, if he may, a well-rounded ending. But Parvathi has a message for us: There are no real endings, are there? Also, as in the old fairy tales, people don’t seem to live happily ever after. Not today, anyway. We see this confusion of thought-streams in “At the Bus Stand” [pp. 9-17]. This, and the follow-on story, “The Library” [pp. 18-31] emphasise this human search for security – and even if one begins to feel secure and more or less fulfilled, there still are the insecurities, torments and abandonments of a world of creatures that swirl around us.

We have Ram, who wishes to build a red laser fountain in an inky blue sea; but he is also searching for a nice girl who would understand him. How do dreamers reach life’s destinations? The story, “The Return” [pp. 32-42] is a glossy characterscope that rises in well manured beds of loneliness. As it draws to an end, we know that it will take many twists and turns beneath the soil of uncertainty until the hesitant plant emerges… Ram, Priya, Shanti, Shereen…

‘Yet each of them suddenly felt conscious of their own inner loneliness. None of them knew in which direction they were going or whether their journeys would ever take them to the destinations they desired to reach’.

“The Origami Bird” [pp. 43-51] shows us how even ordinary people who come from rude village homes, who live in huts on mana – clad hills, can resort to a hatred for those who they consider better or more privileged. To them, the University students are –
‘encroachers and trespassers… Hands reach from nowhere to pull the students to the ground… the officer looks furiously at … the students... The crowd is watching this drama in silent approval. At last these brash students are going to be taught a lesson… Nelu shivers… felt frail, like on Origami bird… With a sense of shock she felt the impact of a baton on the back of her skull and she crumbled into a motionless heap...’

This is a scathing story of utter inhumanity. All that the students wished to do was cross the road… but we see here the monstrous revulsion of the police who look on university students as one more trial in their lives of trial. And what of the crowd that caused the disturbance? Oh, they had stationed themselves, crammed themselves into their spaces and resented the students pushing their way through their ranks. They manhandled the students, drove them to their knees, watched with glee as the police used their batons. Who would use a baton, crush the skull of a girl who only wants to cross the road, enter a church?
Yes, the beast in man will always remain.

Even as I write, over 30,000 refugees swarm this land, homeless, their infants borne in the sacks of their mother’s sari-potas, sheltering in schools, temples, churches, in special camps. Parvathi tells of her own biting, numbering days as a refugee in “The Bamboo Fronds” [pp. 52-58] followed by “In a Refugee Camp: Extracts from a Diary” [pp. 59-61].

Samantha’s story, “Gold Dust” [pp. 62-100] needs its length to plot the convoluted course of Samantha’s life. She has choices, but it seems that others would make them for her. What would give her the satisfaction of knowing that she has a compass whose needle pointed in the right direction? Parvathi has sketched her heroine in cold colour. There is the tourist guide; the hint that she could make a suitable wife for the Bennets’ 40-year-old son who isn’t really interested in marriage; the jewellery salesman who reasons that marrying Samantha, the daughter of a professor, would give his career a boost.

This story, with its vast detail that gives it a special adornment, needs careful exploration of an almost surgical nature:

‘[Samantha] did not know that everyone was caught up in life’s uncertainties and perplexities which rendered them helpless in their search for meaning and cohesion. Was it always possible to remain detached, especially during times of conflict and dissension? There are no real answers to such eternal questions.’

In the end, we have that startling paragraph that begs the question. Is this a self-psychoanalysis... and isn’t Parvathi also part of the writer’s endless search, not knowing where all life’s tunnels and mazes will take her?

Having said so much, I leave my readers to the rest of this collection, the stories short and quick and so resonant. Parvathi has shown us that the immediate success of her first collection has been tremendously enhanced by this, her second. This tells us of an art that is not confined to one manifestation but to many. She does not move in one sphere and the result is as a right-royal feast that raises imaginings of splendidly–dressed serving men bringing before us – the kings who are her readers – the most exotic of foods to be savoured, relished and to work their will on our literary palates.

“Contrapuntal and Other Stories” is an outpouring of so much today’s writers should stand for – and no, not emulate, for there will always be just the one, unique, Parvathi Solomons Arasanayagam.