A quiet entry

SHENBAGAM'S book is before me. Her only short-story collection. Not that writers cannot bring out just one collection and not write for the rest of their lives. But this one is different. It has come out posthumously. Shenbagam, who wrote as Ma. Shenbagam and Kotravai, died of cancer in March 1998. While she was alive, many of her friends including I had told her to bring out her stories in a collection. She had not taken it seriously. But she must have had the same intention for she told her husband that she had already written a preface; a preface he could not find after her death.

I knew Shenbagam to be a very gentle and determined person. She was very unassuming, but when it came to expressing her opinions, she was very forthright. I knew her husband, Mu. Ramaswamy (Professor in the Department of Drama in the Tamil University in Thanjavur) before I knew her. I knew her as a writer though. When I visited Ramaswamy once, he introduced me to Shenbagam and, while we were waiting at the bus stop, I told him about an interesting story I had read. I mentioned the name of another writer as the author. He immediately told me that the story was by his wife. "Is she Ma. Shenbagam then?" I asked him eagerly. "Yes," he said casually. While I was at his place, Shenbagam had mentioned that she was a professor at the Fatima College but had told me nothing about her writing. That is how self-effacing she was.

A few years later, I got to know her better. I was in Madurai doing research and I stayed with her. Mu. Ramaswamy was in Thanjavur and we had plenty of time to go around Madurai and talk. It was the rainy season and I had no synthetic saris. Shenbagam had many and I wore all her saris and she would happily watch me come drenched in one and change into another. One afternoon, both of us got drenched trying to buy tickets for "Devar Magan" and she told me that no one would believe that she, of all people was getting drenched to see "Devar Magan".

"The things you make me do!" she said, and laughed. We stayed up in the nights talking about life and relationships. Her marriage with Mu. Ramaswamy had raised quite a few eyebrows as it was a very unusual relationship. She was older than him and not of his caste. Everyone in her family had decided that she would remain single. Shenbagam was very frank and open about what love meant to her and about the moment when she first recognised it.

We also talked about authors and stories. That was when I told her that she must publish her stories. She was not very enthusiastic. But she was always willing to help another person write stories. I had spoken to her about a story I wanted to write set in a forest. I asked her about the classical Tamil texts which describe forests. I knew of some. But she had specialised in Tamil and knew more. A few months later came a long letter giving details of texts and quotations from Tamil poetry describing forests. It was a handwritten letter and she had taken pains to give names of the texts and how to access them. She never asked me what it was that I wanted to write. The fact that I wanted the details was good enough for her to make the effort. In some article, she had referred to a Tamil book that I did not have. While in Madurai, we tried to buy it but it was out of print. She did not want to part with her book. I do not remember when but, a few months before her death, I got just the book neatly packed with no covering letter. Not knowing that she was ailing, I was furious that she had sent it without a letter. And I did not acknowledge it. I thought I wo would punish her with my silence. Little did I know that she was going to punish me with a greater one.

Ma. Shenbagam's collection has been published by Shanmugasundaram of Kavya publications. He may have done it because of his close friendship with her husband. But a better tribute to Shenbagam could not have been paid. It is called Mudal Manidhanum Kadaisi Manidanum. The collection contains some extraordinary stories, effortlessly written and touching upon basic human contradictions and the complexities of woman-man relationships. Some border on the abstract, almost like science-fiction stories and some others hit you like the sting of a whip. One of her stories begins with this statement:

"When Sarosadevi was trying to come out of her mother's womb to see the outside world her mother was watching a film."

Then there is the story of a poor woman who could speak only in expletives and who beats up her daughter for accepting a blouse piece from a boy; about a clerk who is pregnant and cannot think of a welcome word for the child in her womb; a girl who becomes a teacher only to be disillusioned. The themes of her stories are not common and her style differs in each story. One of her stories ends with the sentence: "I have set the date for my death". It is only a sentence in an old story but knowing that she is no more makes one stop at that sentence for a while.

Shenbagam was in great pain towards the end of her life as is mentioned in her husband's warm preface note. Even then she could listen to the bleating of a lamb in the neighbourhood and say softly, "The lamb is bleating. It is a good lamb". The short- story collection has come into the market quietly just the way Shenbagam would have liked it. But the stories would certainly have a place in the history of Tamil fiction. They remain in one's mind like the fragrance of an unusual flower; like Shenbagam.

C.S.LAKSHMI

The writer is an independent researcher and writer. She writes in Tamil under the pseudonym Ambai. She has two short story collections and a translated one in English called A Purple Sea to her credit. She is the founder - trustee and director of SPARROW (Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women).

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : Out in Africa
Next     : Drawing room drama