Sunflowers of the Dark; Krishna Sobti, Translated from Hindi by Pamela Manasi, Katha, Rs.200
Krishna Sobti’s brilliance shines in each of her works. She not only picks themes of searing relevance to society, but also weaves them into compelling tales.
She evokes images in the mind with her descriptions, choice of metaphor and vocabulary. And keeps the reader engaged, at times wondering, at others guessing or hoping, or cringing, but never complacent.
But then that is what one expects from a masterful storyteller.
Sunflowers of the Dark (Surajmukhi Andhere Ke) is the story of Ratti, whose spirit is tortured by demons from her childhood.
Ahead of times
In this story, as in others, the author shows herself ahead of her times, handling themes that her generation preferred to ignore. Only recently has the official machinery of justice been forced to focus on a victim’s trauma and its long drawn aftermath. Even artists, particularly filmmakers, began to talk of the needs and desires of a woman not too long ago.
What stands in the way of Ratti’s fulfilment? Is it her fate, a cruel society, or her parents’ inability to help her heal?
All these perhaps, but most of all, Ratti’s own refusal (the word ‘stubborn’ comes up often in the story) to compromise with anything less than the truth renders her utterly lonely, yet unable to accept companionship.
In a world still largely male-oriented, those who write of a woman’s search for complete fulfilment are in danger of becoming cynics, or aggressive, or just plain clinical. But in Sobti’s Sunflowers…, one finds the unflinching presentation of reality suffused with compassion, and devoid of judgmental hostility.
The success of a creative work is partly the resonances it creates in the mind of one who peruses it. Here, the language is simple, the story simply strung together. It is not a novel with numerous threads coming together at remote points in time, hundreds of pages away from where they took off.
Tortuous journey
Within just a hundred pages, the author acquaints us with Ratti’s tortuous journey, her fighting spirit that refuses to kneel though it weeps, a spirit that does not allow her to dissimulate for the sake of assuaging the ego of her male friends. Yet its reflections are many.
And in this fine translation, Pamela Manasi does a difficult job aesthetically and subtly. By bringing out an English translation of yet another of Krishna Sobti’s works, Katha has performed a service to readers and fans of this doyenne among Hindi authors.
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