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The book “Mai: Silently Mother” by Geetanjali Shree has been translated from the Hindi by Nita Kumar. The book was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize in 2002. It was also shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award 2001.
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Behind the walls of a house in a North Indian town a whole world thrives—of the joint family, their attendants, their visitors. Three generations of women and their men live different strategies of adjustment and achievement to accommodate or challenge patriarchy. They seem to fit in recognised frames, but what are the subtle machinations behind the apparent stereotypes? It is that which the novel uncovers, in a tale told in deceptively simple terms, using smells, sounds, tastes and flavours, scenes and tiny signs, and incidents of a daily and ordinary existence to build, weave by weave, a rich and layered tapestry, saying always more than is apparent.
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At the centre is mai, the mother, seemingly weak and silent, but it is she who holds together the subtle patterns of relationships and agencies, and quietly carves out a life for herself as also for those around. Her New Age children are obsessed with rescuing her from the ‘prison’ and escaping themselves; but as the story unfolds, any simplistic notion of bondage and freedom goes for a toss. Profound stories of love and loss are lightly delivered.
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Read an excerpt from the book below.
But fire has no part in my childhood. And apparently no part in mai’s tale at all. Her fire was never seen in childhood, or youth, or old age. She must have pulled her flame in and hidden it so well that the coolness which emanated had no trace of sparks in it at all. We could only suspect her fire. Only guess at it.
And do as much only when we got around not to thinking, but reflecting on our thoughts. When it became impossible for contradictory ideas to live peacefully together. When the voiceless shadow caught in the net of oppressors forced us to reflect on the meaning of ‘voiceless’. We had seen ourselves fighting everyone, keeping her safe behind us. That we stayed safe behind her was a thought we never permitted ourselves to think. Or having thought it, did not admit the thought.
We did not acknowledge a mai outside us. Her life had begun, after all, with our births.
It was only later that the cool remains of her fire were there to see. And by then layers of those ashes could be found on so many things.
We had known only that we were in mai and mai was made for us. That is why we could go mad with anger seeing her act like everyone’s puppet, and having to live on their leftovers. If dada wanted some delicacy he got it, when no one wanted it, mai got it. Dadi was fond of a certain exquisite savoury so it was hers, when it became stale it was mai’s. Whatever babu left over was mai’s. Whatever we liked was what mai quietly decided she did not like.
Dada and dadi could not stand food from the fridge—dadi said that refrigerated food became ‘bad’—meaning both stale and ‘evil’. So that was all for mai. If by some chance the dish cooked in the morning appeared at night then dadi would start off—‘You do what you have to do, but for us old people make two fresh rotis if possible. Otherwise tell me, and I will manage it myself. Thanks to the lord my hands and feet are not completely gone yet. They still move.’
We became more alert after a while. We began to scold mai for her habits. ‘You have no wishes of your own…you are passive,’ we would scold her. We ended the system where hers was the last turn and she got the leftovers. Dadi was abusive: ‘Mai is acting simple to lord it over others.’ But our only care was to fill mai with thoughts of independence.
Once we tricked her. We bought fruit. It was winter and there were apples, peaches, apricots in plenty. Lovely red, ripe peaches. I bit into one—‘No taste in these peaches.’ Subodh tasted one— ‘They are crumbly inside. I’ll eat only apples.’
And we saw that for two days mai did not touch any other fruits but ate only the peaches!
We gave her hell and forced her to eat the other fruit.
It seemed that it was our task to not leave mai empty but fill her up with everything. Who else did she have but us?
