Tales without judgment

Suparna Sarawati Puri

It is said that ‘memory, individual or collective, since it relates to the past, seeks a concrete kernel of some fact’. Novelist, award-winning short story writer and best known for her Muzaffar Jang series, Madhulika Liddle’s new book Woman to Woman bears ample testimony to this statement. A pithy collection of 12 stories told with just the right measure of sensitivity, reveal the multitude of facets attributed rather casually to the gender. A clear departure from her previous works that include The Englishman’s Cameo, Engraved in Stone, My Lawfully Wedded Husband and Other Stories and Crimson City, Liddle’s latest work juxtaposes itself appropriately, in the ongoing and increasingly disturbing discourse on women and violence. In other words, the timing of this book could not be better. 

Each story’s seemingly ordinary canvas with relatable characters is rather skilfully landscaped by the author’s lucid style of narration. Liddle’s enthused interest in classic cinema, travel, food and history contributes richly to the tapestry she weaves around her protagonist(s), the circumstantial miseries that compel Paro or Mariamma or Kamini or Sulakshana to combat the so-called normalcy surrounding their lives. Woman to Woman is not a book that glides on predictable and clichéd gender-related concerns (like domestic violence). Instead, it is insightful writing ‘beyond genre fiction’, reflective of a ‘more sombre side’ of the author.

These short stories are indeed women centric but are about “different types of women — women who are lonely and aching for company, women who give all they have, all that really matters: empathy and understanding, women who are obsessed with jewellery, women who battle everything from domineering husbands to terrorism”.  For those who may find it to be a mere collection of grim tales, it is partly true, simply “because in a society that is inherently patriarchal and treats women as second-class citizens there are bound to be issues that would be highlighted in stories that centre round women”.

Given the abject state of affairs, particularly, wherein women have been dragged in as subjects of futile controversy — be it a mythical figure from the past being celebrated on celluloid or a reputed journalist murdered in cold blood — the scenario stinks of injustice. And Liddle’s stories stoke the fragility of our social and moral conditioning, one that appears to be determining a great deal with regard to respecting women for who they are or choose to be. Like Sughra from Collector of Junk says poignantly, “What she collected was the refuse of other people’s lives.”

 For those of us who are privileged in leading a life that is kind and bountiful, the book offers a subtle lesson in earnest gratitude without judging, even those who may have been uncharitable at some point in our lives. Exploring a sea of emotions, Liddle’s Woman to Woman digs deeply into pathos, travels into undesirable spaces of the mundane with reasonable measure of humour and then surges with inspiration that rises from undefeatable resilience that the human spirit is known for.

Personally speaking, each story in its entirety proved to be like ‘a mirror in the hand of the Virgin Mary that is a symbol of flawless perfection, in Parvati’s it is a metaphor for her role as a means for Prakriti to reflect Purusha to him so that he can become aware of himself. It is not the same as a mirror in the hand of Radha, who captures the hope of union with Krishna in it.’