3 on the Shelf

When Krishna Sobti8217;s fiery novel Mitro Marjani hit the market in 1966, readers were scandalised at her vivid and brazen depiction of a cantankerous, sex-starved bahu in a patriarchal Punjabi family. This October, To Hell With You Mitro Katha, Rs 200, translated from Hindi to English by Gita Rajan and Raji Narasimhan, was launched. Many critics wrote off the original book on grounds of obscenity. But this is what Sobti8217;s works are: vivid, close to reality and unapologetic. Mitro8217;s husband suspects her of having an affair with someone; so, the relationship between them is shown to deteriorate with each passing day. And here we have this loudmouth Mitro, complaining to her sister-in-law and mother-in-law about her husband8217;s 8220;inadequacies8221;. It all gels well with Sobti8217;s attempts at establishing that there is nothing which a man can do and a woman cannot, without a trace of embarrassment.

Penguin India is celebrating its 20 years of publishing, most recently with extracts from fiction. The wide sweep of The Fiction Collection two volumes, Rs 395 each can be gauged from the inclusion of Shobhaa De and Kiran Desai. The nicest surprise: the little-mentioned novel on north India before and after Partition, Sunlight on a Broken Column by Attia Hosain. In the publisher8217;s note, therefore, it is heartening to read that beyond the self-congratulation for 8220;the present gold rush8221; in Indian writing in English and the number of award-winning authors represented in these pages, there is mention of future attempts to bring back into print older writers like Kamala Markandeya. Here8217;s to more than 20 years of that endeavour.

It is conceptualised, says the blurb, with students of literature in mind, to make for 8220;interactive classroom use8221;, but the casual reader too is bound to benefit from reading Short Fiction from South India edited by Subashree Krishnaswamy and K. Srilata, Oxford University Press, Rs 95. Among the writers are A.K. Ramanujan, Lalithambika Antherjanam, Ashokamitran and Raavi Sastry.