Materials and motifs of Indian
thought system in the short stories of K. V. Dominic
Biswanath Kundu
An edited anthology of 17 selected
short stories written by K V Dominic, one of the globally known literary
luminaries of our time looks like a kaleidoscope to explore the essence and
fragrance of short stories that can be read in a single sitting. The stories included in the present anthology
are based on various themes like Man & Nature, Value of Compassion, Crime
& Karma, and The Fates and so on that affect and effect the flow of life
everywhere in the world. Let’s read them one by one.
The collection opens with the story,
“Who is Responsible” that delineates Crime & Karma in a style characterized
by realism and authentic introspection into the complexities of the Indian
society. Rehman, a retired headmaster in Kerala and Ramla, a housewife got their
only son Anwar who was employed abroad, married to Aisha, a beautiful girl of
the locality. Anwar came to India for a short leave. After joyous wedding
celebration followed by the sweetest honeymooning at Ooty, Anwar went back to
Oman, leaving behind his young and beautiful wife to his parents till his next
leave after two years. At the end of the happy spell spent with her beloved,
Aisha now got caught severely in grief and loneliness. Life started to take twists and turns for
Aisha. Her in-laws apprehended something unethical but dared not ask anything.
They started decaying from within. Their psychological traumas as well as the
reality of life have been nicely depicted in the following lines:
“It was true that she was a bride,
but her body knew no ethics. Who would satiate her carnal desires? How long
could she control her desires? How could she resist the enticement? Was it fair
for her husband to leave her hungry there for such a long time? Can Anwar be
blamed as he was against the marriage itself? Who is to be blamed then?”
Rehman’s heaven like house turned quick to a hell of sorrows
and dejection followed by twine shocking news, first his daughter-in law’s
elopement with a chauffeur and next his son’s sacking from service on charges
of involvement in terrorist activities. He wished not to live any longer and
prayed God to get withdrawn. Finally he and his wife are found stabbed to death
in their bedroom. The police came and started to investigate the crime. Here
again the following lines raise an eternal question to the humanity all around
the world:
“Who is to be blamed for the tragedy
of Rehman and his family? When thousands of villainous wolves flourish and
reign, innocent lambs like Rehman are mercilessly butchered. Where is the
poetic justice?”
“Sanchita Karma” is again a
wonderful story on the same theme i.e., on Crime & Karma. It resembles to a
frame story or a story within a story. The present story reminds the readers of
the narrative tales available in Panchatantra. As per accumulated
results of actions of previous births Stephan, an advocate and Stella, a housewife
in their earlier birth, are now reborn as mice to be chased by the souls of
seven cats whom they had killed through poisoning. The herd of the seven cats
had been enjoying their life freely and happily in the house of their masters’
who were extremely kind hearted, affectionate and lover of nature too. But
suddenly there came a tragic end of their happy life due to cruelty and
selfishness from the part of Stephen and his wife, Stella. Preethi, the grandma of the victim cat family
now breaks down in anger and pains and comments:
‘We, cats have no boundaries as you
mice too. The creator has created this earth for all animals and plants. He has
not given human beings any special right to fence any land. But the selfish man
does so’. Pointing to the trembling mice couple, she hits out: ‘the devil in
him and his wife nurtured hate for us and it ended in poisoning us.’
The cycle of death and rebirth has been superbly explicated
once again in the story through Preethi, as found from the following line:
“The cruelty you had shown to us and
our masters are the karmas which demanded reaction. The gravity of your crimes
was such that it could not be atoned by any punishment when you were still
alive as human beings. So you are destined to be born as mice to be chased by
the souls of the seven cats you dispatched in your last birth.”
Let’s now discuss stories dealing
with Man & Nature. There are four such stories in these collections. These
are: “World Environment Day”, “Nature Teaches”, “The Twins” and “Is Human lives
Precious than Animal’s”. The essence and
fragrance of life on earth is a reality so long honored as the interdependence
of Man and Nature. The very survival of human beings is in peril once Nature
starts to take revenge for wounds being inflicted on her. The writer who
himself is a great humanist cum Nature lover has described this plain truth as
picturesquely as well as deftly in all these four stories. Let’s analyze it one
by one.
In “ Nature Teaches” he shows how a crooked and commercial design
of the Municipal Council of felling down a big roadside fig tree that houses
birds, squirrels, flies, honeybees, wasps, chameleons, spiders, ants and
several other creatures besides being the shelter for passengers waiting for
buses in the sun and rain was foiled by Nature itself. The readers start
swallowing the vivid portrayal of the development when the protest of a group
of Nature lovers failed and emerged instead on the scene the non humans with the
onus of safeguarding their habitat and teaching man a lesson that they are
never inferior to him but superior as found from the following:
“Now is our turn,” The leader of the
crow gave signal to all birds. All the crows, mynahs, and other birds flew down
and started pecking on the head of the Sub inspector, police constables,
Chairman, Managers and woodcutters. The Sub Inspector gave order to shoot the
birds with guns. The gun shots went up and one hit the huge wasp nest on one of
the branches of the tree. Thousands of wasps flew down angrily and attacked the
offenders. The police, the Chairman and the Manager got into their vehicles and
sped away for their lives…”
‘World Environment Day’ is another
wonderful story wherein Kaatturaja, the most sought out forest thief in
Karnataka gets transformed into a forest savior meted with again a great
teaching from Nature. Here is the pen picture of the great change:
“5th June 2011. World Environment
Day. Kaatturaja was all alone in the forest and was trying to axe a teak. ….The
teak sensed the advent of its death and cried for help. Insensible to human
beings the cry reached the ears of elephants grazing on a mound nearby.
…the elephants rushed to him
roaring. Frightened he shot up the tree like a rocket. The elephants stood
beneath the tree waiting for his descent. The teak thanked the elephants
through its rustling applause.”
This story provides an excellent message of the need of
preservation of forest and protecting its animals for the very survival of
human beings.
Fight against cruelty to animals is
not only a slogan but a social obligation. Government has earmarked April as
the month of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Violation of the law of Indian
Animal Welfare Act is a criminal offence. Still poor animals suffer miserably
at the hands of cattle traders and are forced to end their lives bearing
intolerable pains and groins. On this perspective another masterpiece short
story titled “Is Human life Precious than Animal’s?’ is here a special gift to
the readers. Being shocked at the video clip of the 9 pm news in Asianet TV
Channel Prof. Antony Francis, a professor of Zoology in a Government college
and a genuine lover of animals lodged a criminal case against Anthappan, the
cattle trader and the murderer of the cow, in the High Court of Kerala and
pleaded as follows:
“Had it been a human being in place
of the murdered cow, what punishment Mr. Anthappan would have deserved, the
same punishment shall be awarded to him, I plead your honour. Your honour, is
human life precious than animals’ or animals’ life valueless compared to
humans’?”
“The Twins” is an equally important addition in this series
of stories dealing with Man and Nature. How pet cats have become inseparable
members of a family has been nicely described in this story. Manikutty and Amminikutty,
the angelic twins would play happily not only in the kitchen but also in the
entire room pestering miau, miau, miau with their loving master and mistress.
With their presence they both got back their childhood and started playing with
them and enjoying their activities as found from the following:
‘The expression of these twins’
love-their kissing each other, hugs, licking one another, sleeping on other’s
body, eating and drinking from the same plate, playing together etc, etc, --are
real feasts for our eyes and mind.’
When everything was going on smoothly suddenly the scenario
changed. Master’s mother who was eighty seven years old, weak and heart patient
had come there for staying with them for some months. She needed medicines
timely. One day while masters were leaving for their workplaces they fed the
twins and kept extra food for them in the kitchen and prayed to God that the
twins should not create problems to their mother. During lunch time when he
returned home he saw his mother struggling for breath and tablets and food
tumbled down. Immediately he attended to her emergency medical needs and
thereafter readied to leave the twins for the very life of his dear mother. The
writer’s philosophical note on this regard is worth mentioning:
‘After all
life is a sum of innumerable meetings and partings!’
His act of deserting the loving twins is ridiculed
brilliantly by the great lines uttered by the twins as found from the following:
‘Pappa, are you leaving us? Please
don’t leave us. Please don’t leave us. How will we live? Who will feed us?
Wasn’t it better that you killed us?’ Ultimately
he was relieved of suffocation and aching of his heart by a call from his
mother ordering him to bring back the twins to home again as seen from the
following line:
“…If you can’t, then you may discard
me also.’
Here, we, the readers are reminded of the satire in the
story of ‘The Necklace’ by Maupassant, the father of the modern short story.
There are several stories in these
collections based on ‘The value of Compassion’. All are distinct in unfurling
great social messages. Let’s discuss them one by one starting with “A Good
Samaritan”.
Prof. Mohan was driving a car along national highway to
attend a seminar at Thrissur. Suddenly he noticed a man lying unconscious and
bleeding through his nostrils at the left side of the road. Unlike the general
trend of the urban selfish people, he lifted him to his car and took him to the
nearest hospital. He signed the papers for the patient as none of his relatives
was present there. He himself even advanced an amount of Rs. 10000/- as fees of
operation. On recovery of identity card and a phone diary from the wallets of Xavier,
the victim, he called to his wife, Mariam, at home. Within half an hour Mariam
arrived there accompanied by a dozen people followed by more and more people of
different sections of the society. They all started praying for his life. The
story based on such an incident that is common in our life looks like a
pleasant and happy reading for those who believe in divine justice. The writer
has beautifully presented it during the conversation between Prof. Mohan and
Mariam as found from the following:
‘...My husband has saved five
hundred and ten people from the road accidents in the past eight years. We have
taken it our mission to save lives of men who are uncared on road sides. My
daughters and I help my husband in nursing the accident victims in the
hospital. There were several cases in which the relatives of the victims never
turned up and we had to bear the hospital charges. Forty nine victims have died
on the lap of my husband on his way to the hospital…”
‘Multicultural Harmony’ is another
excellent story conveying the message of ‘The value of compassion’. Amar, Akbar
and Antony were three friends. They lived with their families as members of one
joint family in a village in Kerala and celebrated happily the religious
festivals like Onam, Vishu, Christmas, Easter, Ramzan, Bakrid etc together. Amar’s
son Anand and Antony’s daughter Celina were in love with each other since
school time. They are now both engineering graduate and employed at Bangalore.
When Celina’s father was planning to get his daughter married the relation
between Anand and Celina was no more kept in secret. The thought of
inter-religious marriage reared in two souls when expressed two bosom friends
were turned into foes overnight. Their common friend Akbar tried as a mediator
to unite them but failed as both the families were inflamed by religious
sentiments. Although there was great pressure from both the families and
relatives to break their love and decision to marry, their love did not end,
rather continued, of course secretly. Meanwhile losing peace of mind Celine
became seriously ill and needed Kidney transplantation. When Antony was at his
wits’ end how to save his dear daughter from the impending death Akbar conveyed
to him Anand’s willingness to donate one of his kidneys to Celina. This was the
turning point that brought two families closer again. Hundreds of the villagers
including parish priest, pujari, and imam who were waiting outside the hospital
celebrated the successful transplantation in a festive mood coming out of their
religious bigotries. The happy ending of this tale of true love is
picturesquely delineated as follows:
“The Pujari said: we are only happy
to be part of this purest union of two souls.
The parish priest then said: Its God
Almighty who has united them sharing their organs and religions shall take it
in that sense giving full support to God’s plans. We will surely be present for
the function and will bless the ideal couple.
The Imam said: This is God’s plan
and man shall not try to make any obstructions. I will be present for the
function to bless the noble couple.”
This story provides an excellent example of the notion of
transmigration of soul. And this will help people living in any corner of the
world to get a firsthand experience of authentic Indian culture.
There are three other stories on the
same theme i.e., the value of compassion. These are ‘An email from Senthil
Kumar’, ‘Clement’s return from UAE’ and ‘Compassion rewards’. In all these
stories a great message is conveyed to the society that the compassion shown to
anyone in life never goes in vain, rather it comes back amply rewarded in that
very life.
In-depth analysis of the minds of
the people around us has been reflected in the story ‘An email from Senthil
Kumar.’ The story showcases with instances after instances how an honest lie
prolongs the life of an over sentimental aged heart patient and rewards the
family by sustaining life of their dearest member again and again. A dutifully
beautiful son may not get an equally beautifully dutiful mother in times of
need. Selfishness and individualism, the hard realities of life have been
nakedly exposed during covid-19 or more particularly at the times of quarantine
period.
Author’s keen observation on the
developments of the society during pandemic period has been vividly portrayed
in the story ‘Clement’s return from UAE’.
The writer’s penetration into the
psychological aspects of human nature is clearly evident from the composition
of the story ‘Compassion rewards’ wherein he shows how benevolent and
compassionate mind works reversibly and helps rescue the distressed in times of
need.
The collection includes four stories
dealing with the burning social issues and the fates. These are ‘Aren’t they
our sisters?’, ‘Seetha’s resolve’, ‘Old age home’ and ‘Fate of migrant
labourers’. Let’s go through the stories one after another.
The first story of the series i.e.,
‘Aren’t they our sisters?’ opens with landing of Rajesh, a son of a sex worker
now a very rich man and owner of Govind Mills, Kochi, at Mumbai Airport and
proceeding to a brothel at Kamathapura for rescuing Kerala girls who are living
there a filthy, hellish life. After much persuasion he succeeds in agreeing
Stella, an abused sex worker and other nineteen hapless ladies to the offer of
their rehabilitation to normal life with employment at the Mills based on their
education and skill. Through a grand welcome celebration attended by nearly 500
people including Mayor of Kochi and a retired chief justice of Kerala High
Court they were all brought back to the mainstream of the society with a new
life full of happiness and hope.
Like a genuine social reformer, the
writer pinpoints the circumstances leading to induction of innocent and
credulous young girls into the sex racket and advocates strongly for
rehabilitation of the cheated, tortured and abused human resources through messages
conveyed by different VIPs present in the welcome celebration as found from the
following:
‘…company’s unique act should be a
model to all big firms and billionaires in the world. The wealth they amass is
indirectly the wealth of the society and so part of it should be returned to
the society by way of humanitarian activities. The retired chief justice in his
key note reminded the society that it should never treat sex workers with
contempt. Having abused and exploited for carnal pleasures, treating them like
curry leaves is cruelty of highest degree and unpardonable. After all aren’t
they your own sisters?”
Love makes one blind and prompts to go to the extreme caring
little about his counterpart lest his beloved goes to the other hands, is the main
theme of the story ‘Seetha’s resolve’. Venu, an auto rickshaw driver loved his
classmate Seetha, now a teacher by profession, since the school days. Venu
never expressed his love but reared it secretly in his mind. One day when he
came to know that Seetha was going to be married off soon elsewhere he proposed
her and was rejected outright for not being a good match. He could not digest
the rejection and committed a heinous crime of burning her face with acid as to
avoid her being owned by someone else through marriage because he loved her so
much. Thus the young beautiful lady got fated as an acid victim. The fate of
the victim can be guessed from the following:
‘Usually acid victims are neglected
by the society and they take refuge in the rehabilitation centres established
by NGOs.’
Disaster, however, tragic and enormous be it, can always be
overcome with will power. Perhaps this philosophy of life of the writer finds a
pleasant expression in this story. He shows how an ill fated acid victim returns
to normal life with support from family members and people around her and even
emerges as the Best Teacher of the year in the country. The great message of
extending hands of support to the distressed people as conveyed in this story
may be found from the following speech she gave on her receiving the national
award from the President:
‘… I dedicate this award and honour to the
thousands of acid victims in the world. I could come back to my life and rise
to this stature only because of the love and compassion shown to me by the
people around me. Hence I request all my
countrymen to shower love and concern to the victims who are destined to live
hellish miserable life in their houses and rehabilitation centres. It is for no
reason of theirs that they became victims of such inhuman atrocities. Given
proper love and compassion these victims can come back to normal life like me.’
Let’s now read the story ‘Fate of
Migrant labourers’. Here we see Aminul, a migrant labourer working in Kerala
with the builder Arjun Saab got upset and panicked hopelessly hearing the news
of sickness of his wife during covid period. On advice of his other roommates
there, he approached his employer who not only readily assured all financial
help to the ill-fated labourer but stood by him also as a big brother providing
necessary guidance to treat his sick wife. Unlike the trends of selfishness and
inhuman activities in the society, the story provides an excellent example of
human relation between the employer and the employee.
Movement of people from one state to
another in search of job is a common exercise for all those either totally
unemployed or seasonally employed. Big companies are always busy ensuring
supply of cheap labourers from the economically weaker sections to register
greater profitability in their trades. Deprived of job opportunities in home
states skilled and unskilled labourers are compelled to leave their dear homes
and stay outside only to arrange food for dear families. Thus are born the
migrant labourers. During the period of lockdown most of them had lost their
jobs and thus they had been passing through the most precarious life. People
were seen turning fast into selfish entities having neither time nor intention
to serve anyone except themselves. Humanity seemed to reach at its bottom.
Still there was a ray of hope, a rare celebration of true love between two
uneven classes, the employer and the employee that has got explored by the
optimistic writer in this touching story as found from the following:
“In an inhuman society where
employers show least love and kindness to employees and labourers, Arjun shines
like a star-a polestar showing an exemplary model to all”
‘Old age home’ is again a touchy
story related to pangs of loneliness experienced in the growing old age homes
in the city that is fated to be the refuge of hundreds of senior citizens who
have been bereaved either of dear soul partners at home or forced to stay
singly here being separated from their dear children established and settled
abroad.
Juxtaposition of joy and sorrow, pride and tears, reality
and fantasy is littered extensively in the entire story. Getting old is an
unstoppable process of life and readying to leave behind our dearest and
loveliest possession both living and nonliving with time is a reality. The
writer’s social awareness as well as pragmatic vision of life can be traced
from the conversation of two inmates of the Old age home as follows:
‘Ravi: Calm down, Jacob. This is the
fate of all parents whose children are abroad. There are thousands of parents
like you in hundreds of old age homes grieving like you. This is the way of the
present world. Kindly take life philosophically like me and enjoy life till it
leaves our body.’
Let’s now read the story’ Coffin
Maker’ that happens to be the concluding story of these collections. In the
story we see how Pater, once the best student in the class in a school in
Kerala was inducted in the business of coffin making due to poverty. Finding no
other option to feed a big family consisting of widowed mother, wife and two
children he was chained in his father’s shop where he had apprenticed after the
end of his school education. He was going through severe mental agony with this
fearful profession that looked like praying for people’s death. His daughter
too requested him to give up the job and try for anything better to maintain
the family with happiness. But glaring unemployment problem in Kerala and his
poor health stood as an impediment to take risk of availing any new initiative.
So despite enduring unbearable pains, while he was continuing in his business
of coffin making, one day he happened to meet his old classmate Afsal at his
shop. This meeting brought a great turn in his life as he found an escape route
from the hellish life. He was offered a job in Kuwait. And like a true friend
Afsal made all arrangements including passport, visa .He extended necessary
financial support also and helped him start a new happy chapter in his life.
A friend in need is a friend indeed.
This eternal truth finds its practical application in the story ‘Coffin Maker’.
Pangs of agony coupled with irony of fate unleashed with burning unemployment
problem have been nicely captured by the writer as found from the following:
‘…I don’t like this job. But there
is no other option to feed my family. Horrifying images of death are dancing
around me whenever I work here. No pleasing thoughts enter my mind.”
We have so far discussed about the
sixteen stories. One is still left. Now we will wind up our discussion with the
reading of the story “Best government Servant’. Here it is:
Dr. Krishnan Namboodiri, the son of
an honest retired school teacher got appointment as an LDC in a Taluk Office in
Kerala at the age of 38 after enduring a series of tests and tribulations of
life. In spite of his all through brilliant academic records, a pauper student
like him could not get deserving placement anywhere so long mostly due to staggering
unemployment problem and excellent literacy rate and somehow due to lack of
financial and political connection to bargain a job for him. Born in an ideal
Brahmin family he inherited great values like honesty, sincerity, truthfulness,
patriotism and so on from his parents. Just after a week of his joining in the
office, he got shocked seeing his colleagues taking bribes for their service.
He not only refused to take his share but also protested vehemently against the
ongoing practice of corruption in the government office. As a punishment of his
non cooperation with the existing practice of receiving compliments from the
generous customers for the service, soon he was transferred to a village office
at a remote place by the Tahsildar. In the new office he continued to serve the
poor people of the locality honestly with certificates and other documents as
expeditiously as possible and lodged a bribery case in the high court against
the Tahsildar and the entire staff of the Taluk Office. With support of his
parents and wife he fought a legal war singly and boldly against all the
corrupt staff. He won it ultimately and was reinstated to the Taluk Office with
additional increment emerging as the Best Government Servant by Governor of
Kerala.
The story unveils the pains and
traumas of the unutilized human resources. It is again a pensive account of the
corruption amongst a section of people in government jobs. It gives a
distressing note of degradation of values, morality and ethics in the society. But
it is not all about nihilism. He is optimistic too and banks on some positive
aspects of life. Great virtues like honesty, sincerity, dedication to duty and
extending helping hands to the needy and the distressed transpire automatically
from inheritance. This conviction has been established in this story. The fight
for a noble cause may be challenging but it ends with a rewarding win provided
the courage and stamina is not lost. Different shades of life are scattered
plentifully throughout the story which is reflective of the psyche of the
writer as well as a direct hit on the great mockery of the present day system as
found from the following:
“…you have to do your duties very
promptly as others are. There is a harmony in our work and therein lies our success.”
All these seventeen short stories
discussed so far are powerful enough to spread awareness and educate the
people. Readers find in almost all the stories a fine blend of reality and
fantasy. Like a master craftsman he portrays a picturesque view of the tales
catering to the needs of analyzing short stories from an anthropological point
of view. The shadow of the great style of writing of both James Joyce and
Ernest Hemingway is greatly noticed in most of the stories of these collections
as reflected from the application of his profound minds as well as simplicity
of language and modern themes. He speaks volume in a short space about cause
and effect in relationship with words flowing from the mouths of the characters
but staying in our minds. Almost all the stories included in these collections
belong to the Indian soil in general and in Keralitic perspective in particular.
Like the stories of R. K. Narayan’s here also readers find a lot of portrayals
relating to south Indian life, their culture, custom, faith and his views of
the world and those who live in it. These short stories, all being rich gifts
in world literature, it is believed, will enjoy the media adaptations and find
its deserving inclusion in curricular activities.
Works
Cited
Dominic, K. V. Nirbachita Choto Galpo. Rohini Nandan, 2022.
---. Sanchita Karma and Other Tales of Ethics and Choice from India. Modern History Press, 2018.
---. Short Stories During Covid-19. Authorspress, 2022.
Maupassant, Guy de. “The Necklace.” https://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Neck.shtml.
Biswanath
Kundu
A science graduate and a retired Accounts
Official in Indian Railways, Biswanath Kundu (b.1963) is an author of
thirteen books, seven of them being books of poems. Besides he has co-authored
two books of criticism with Dr. Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya. His poems and
articles have been published in different prestigious anthologies and
internationally famous journals. Email: bp_kundu@yahoo.com
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