Language and Lifeworlds

– Deepa Srinivas

This article draws on my experience of working with Anveshi for a project titled Different Tales. Popularly known as the ‘stories project’, it entailed a search for children’s stories from marginalized communities–stories that one rarely sees in print. It was a long journey for those of us in the project—often filled with doubts and difficult questions, yet greatly enriching and opening out ways of engaging non-mainstream childhoods. The project led to the collection and publication of a set of 15 stories for older children in a series named Different Tales. Written in Telugu and Malayalam originally, these stories were translated across the two languages as well as into English.

The initiative took shape within a larger critique of dominant representations of childhood in children’s literature, textbooks, consumer culture and popular media as a period of innocence, neatly separated from adult anxieties and responsibilities. A survey of standard reading material produced in India since independence reveals that narratives are routinely built around the everyday lives, economic resources, familial bonds, beliefs, food habits and emotions of children from middle class backgrounds. Children from non-mainstream settings do sometimes appear in these stories but they must strive to establish their exceptionality in order to be accepted.

This article is a brief discussion of the relationship between language and life worlds, a question that emerged as central in Different Tales. We found out early enough that the search for different childhoods in stories also called for the search for a new register. The conventional language of children’s stories was tied up to the dominant idea of childhood. This meant that the language of a story had to be as simple as the ‘simple’ minds and hearts of children. It had to be direct, uncomplicated and transparent. However, a close look at the language of mainstream children’s stories uncovered its ideological assumptions; its ‘innocence’ was mediated by an upper caste middle class point of view. For example, a typical narrative for young children might go something like this: ‘Here is Ramu. Ramu is a carpenter. See that lovely table at the centre of your living room? Ramu makes tables like those….On most days Ramu has to work very hard. But he loves his craft and always has a smile on his face!” The apparent simplicity of language oversimplifies Ramu, reducing him to the service he renders for a privileged class of people. Yet another story, drawing from Hindu mythology, narrates how Shurpanakha, Ravana’s sister, is smitten by Rama. Lakshmana must cut off her nose and ears in order to restrain her and send her back to Lanka. Strangely enough, while children’s literature must ideally be free of violence, there is no attempt to camouflage the violence of Lakshmana’s action by moderating the choice of words –they are direct and brutal. The story is meant to evoke two kinds of emotions in children: awe at Lakshmana’s masculine prowess and mirth at the demon-woman’s incongruous and illegitimate desire for the blue-blooded Aryan male—Rama.

Writers from dalit and other marginalized communities break away from the language embedded in dominant children’s literature. Let me try to elaborate this point by recalling one of my many conversations with Gogu Shyamala, a well known dalit feminist and writer. Two of Shyamala’s stories, ‘Tataki’ and ‘Madiga Badeyya’ have been published in Different Tales. For Shyamala, writing in the local register of the Madiga community of Telangana that she belongs to, is also an act of retrieval of the history of that community. As she puts it, “The stories I wrote are about my childhood; about the occupations and productive labour of my family and community. When I wrote as an adult, I myself had become distanced from that language. Sometimes I would call up my sister and ask, ‘What is that word?’ If she too didn’t remember, I would ask her mother-in-law.”

Shyamala’s concern is reflected in the use of certain words, such as landha in ‘Madiga Badeyya.’ Landha refers to the pit or tank, traditionally used by the Madiga community to make leather. Walled off by rocks, this pit would contain water, lime, tangedu leaves and the leather under process. Shyamala admits that many people, including some from her own community, might not be familiar with the word today. Modern methods of leather-making have made the landha obsolete. Yet for Shyamala, the word resonates with the occupational and cultural history of her community. She recalls how people from all communities would come and pay their respects to the landha in a village. The leather made in the landha would become part of the potter’s or the ironsmith’s tools, indicating the interdependence between productive castes.

In ‘Head Curry’, a Telugu story written by Mohammed Khadeer Babu, a Muslim writer from Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh, the language foregrounds the connections between food culture and community life. This story is woven around his childhood memory of the cooking of the ram’s head at his home, considered a delicacy in his region and community. It describes a pleasure rarely represented in children’s literature which is located firmly within the normative vegetarian culture. The descriptions are from the child-protagonist’s point of view—from the time he procures the coveted ram’s head on a Sunday from the butcher Maabbasha to the time when the intricate dish is cooked to perfection and the family hurriedly sits down to an eagerly awaited, mouth watering meal. Khadeer Babu’s words capture the taste, textures and pleasures of the dish: ’Sitting around in a circle, eating the head curry—so full of fat that it sticks to the hand, the small black pieces tasting heavenly—mixing it with hot rice, with brain fry as a side dish…all the headache that plagued us till then disappears, leaving us with a feeling that the world is a blessed place.’ The language is simple yet it slips in images and smells and tastes that are unfamiliar in children’s stories. Some critics have found the language of ‘Head Curry’ to be too gory for a children’s story. Their sense of shock is clearly tied to the normative perception of minority meat eating practices as savage and deviant.

The sanitization of language in children’s stories implies a refusal to engage with the difficulties of childhood. Different Tales grapples with the truth that the lives of children—especially of those from marginalized communities—are not without violence. Shyamala’s ‘Tataki’ is about eleven-year old Balamma who gets up at the crack of dawn so she can channel the freshly released canal water into her family’s tiny plot. But in doing so she inadvertently violates an incontrovertible rule—the land-owning, upper caste karnam’s plots must be watered before anyone else’s. Outraged at this transgression, he calls her lanjamunda (whore/bitch) and attempts to rape her. The story deviates from standard children’s reading in two major ways. First, it depicts sexual violence which is considered a taboo. Second, it uses words of abuse that are unacceptable in children’s stories. Shyamala believes that it is important to retain the abuse word. Words such as lanjamunda are routinely used by the upper castes to humiliate dalit women including young dalit girls. Balamma’s childhood does not mitigate her transgression of the caste hierarchy. Shyamala’s language reflects the realities of Balamma’s life but the story does not get locked into violence and victimhood. It moves on to speak of how Balamma draws on the wisdom of the women in her community to get out of a difficult situation. The story deals with sexual violence but also focuses on the resilience of the child and her relationship with the community.

The stories of Different Tales may be enabling for children from marginalized communities because they mirror and validate their lives, work, families, relationships and negotiations. Does this mean they have nothing to offer middle class children? I do believe that standard children’s literature restricts the imagination of middle class children as well. Stories from non-mainstream contexts open up new perceptions and enjoyments for all children, beyond the clichéd models of ‘We are all Indian’ or ‘Unity in Diversity.’

This is by no means an exhaustive account of the complexity of the language question as it emerged through Different Tales. I only hope it signals how the language of stories from marginal cultures is not determined by a pre-existing ideal of childhood, but is shaped by lives and contexts. For a children’s literature aspiring to represent plural childhoods, these stories hold rich possibilities.

Deepa Srinivas teaches at Centre for Women’s Studies, Hyderabad University.