Structure [silpam] in Telugu story

(Published as author’s editorial for January 2007, www.thulika.net. Some of the stories referred are available in tanslation on the site)

Stories evolve in a given culture, like their lifestyle, from their own environment. Readers and critics need to analyze a story from that perspective. In practice, however, there seem to be two angles. One one hand, it would seem untenable to apply modern criteria to assess a work of fiction written long time ago. On the othr, we will not have new insights into the literature of previous centuries if we had not applied new ways of reading a text of the past. Then the question is what is the plausible way to appreciate the fiction of the past?

Kondaveeti Satyavati, editor of popular well-known feminist magazine, bhumika, pointed out in her article on Bhandaru Acchamamba , that Acchamamba was not given due credit by the  establishment as the first writer in the history of modern fiction. She commented that the critics dismissed Acchamamba’s story, dhanatrayodas, as “failed to meet the criteria for short fiction.”

I thought it would be interesting to compare Acchamamba’s story to a contemporary story by a writer who is regarded highly as writer and critic. While I was searching for such stories, I stumbled on an anthology, alasina gundelu [Tired hearts] by [late] Rachamallu Ramachandra Reddy. In the same anthology, Ramachandra Reddy included a 43-page essay on the structure in fiction, “kathaanikaa, daani silpamuu” [Short story and its structure]. In the essay, Ramachandra Reddy quoted Kodavatiganti Kutumba Rao, our top-ranking Marxist writer and critic, as saying, “In these stories we read about the same events we see in real life, and which we ignore, and are electrified.” Translating the entire essay is beyond the scope of this article. I will quote a few salient points relevant to my discussion from the aforesaid essay.

Ramachandra Reddy elaborated on his views on short story as follows:

I wrote these stories with a hope that they would imprint a strong sense of emotion on the readers’ hearts. … In fact, the entire literature is oriented towards hearts. There is no literature without feeling. That feeling however must not turn into a melodrama.

One popular notion is that a story must have a ‘point’. “I am not sure if there is an equivalent term in Telugu for the word ‘point’. For the present, I would call it lakshyam. A story must convey a truth, a moral, a principle, or a hypothesis. …

In the previous century, when the story was born, its point was either a truth or a moral. That means it is only a concept in the mind of the writer.

Then there is the question, What about feeling? … The reader continues to experience the emotions of the characters while reading a story. Then the question we must ask is whether a story can be written to either invoke a feeling or convey a message exclusively?”

Ramachandra Reddy discussed the topic at length quoting a few European writers like O’Henry and Katherine Mansfield and then posed the question how it was relevant to his discussion on hand. He stated that currently the short story in Telugu has gotten entangled in the steel arms of the commercial magazines, lost its original form, and been reduced to a skeleton. He further added:

Because a story will inevitably contain a “feeling” in some form or other, and because nobody is writing at Katherine Mansfield’s level now, let us limit our discussion to the point in a story. … A short story must have only one point, and, characters and incidents should contribute toward that end, the point.

From that perspective, Ramachandra Reddy attempted to write a story as an experiment in structure, an indispensable characteristic to achieve the point in the story. The author observed that most people in the world live a tedious, uneventful life, and most of them are women, understandably. Therefore, he decided to depict the life of one such woman.

The story, mana jeevita kathalu [Stories of Our Lives], opens with the statement, “I may search her entire life and still find not a single incident worth writing about. How can I write a story without anything special in her life or lifestyle?” That is the problem for structure, says the author.

Mr. Ramachandra Reddy took it as a challenge since he had never come across a story without point, which makes it impossible to make the story structurally strong. The closest he could think of was “Madame Bovary” by Gustavo Flaubert, in which Emma, the main character, lived a droning life. She was not without emotions. In fact, she had a fantasy in her mind, which clashed with her surroundings outside, leading to her mental breakdown. Her husband on the other hand was willing to take life as it came and so he had no problem. There was no conflict in his life. He was a flat character.

Ramachandra Reddy decided to create a character similar to the husband in “Madame Bovary” in peddamma, the main character in “the Stories of Our Lives.” Since there was no conceivable tension or conflict in peddamma’s life, the author created two more characters, a couple living next door. He based his story on the responses of the couple to the dull life of peddamma. Readers are expected to respond to the husband/writer/narrator’s anxiety to find a thrilling incident in the old woman’s life and the wife’s two-fold anxiety. She attempts to squeeze out a story from peddamma for the sake of her husband, and in the process, builds a bond with the old woman rather unwittingly. In the end, the wife sees a story in the life of peddamma but not the husband. Is that a comment on the way men and women think and respond to a fellow human: Or, is it supposed to be the way a writer and a non-writer would respond?

In his analysis of structure, we see three perceptions–that of Ramachandra Reddy the writer, Ramachandra Reddy the critic, and the narrator in the story. The author and the critic explain the why, how and the result of writing a story without plot. The narrator within the story lives it. There is however some overlap, I think between the writer and the narrator.

The author says, “Peddamma has a husband, children, and the usual events such as children’s weddings, and the little tribulations in life, the same as everybody else … That is a common denominator for almost all people. Other than that, there are no events, nothing unusual, in her life. She has not experienced intense pleasures or unbearable hardships. She believes that life is the same for everybody. Her understanding of life is so narrow.”

As I was reading this analysis, I had to stop at the last line. Suddenly it felt like the critic became the narrator in calling the woman’s understanding of the world into question. The narrator in the story had the same impression from peddamma’s life. However, his wife could relate to peddamma’s account of her life. That became obvious when the wife asked her husband, “Did you hear peddamma’s story?” There is a story for her.

Ramachandra Reddy the writer decided to write a story about the way people around her would respond to peddamma’s unflustered life in the absence of passion in her own life. “Others may react to her in any number of ways. Some may be sympathetic to her. Others may resent her apathy, or even be aggravated by it and become philosophical. If I could depict all these responses effectively, it could turn into a good story,” said Ramachandra Reddy.

There was also a comment about the names in the story. In response to the comment by another critic, the author said, “Somebody commented that I did not give a name to the old woman to imply that she is a very ordinary person, insignificant in a way. I did not think so. In fact, I did not give names to the other two characters in the story either. I agree that names do carry weight in stories but I did not find the need to do so in this story.”

I would like to add a note on this aspect in our stories. In Telugu culture, we often address people using relational terminology such as peddamma (granny), akka (older sister), atta (aunt( even when we are not related by blood. I see the term peddamma as a proper name in that context. Other minor characters in the story such as son and daughter are also not given names.

Acchamamba’s story, “strividya” [Women's education, www.thulika.net/2007January/ABstory.htm] is comparable to the above story in some ways stories deal with no major heartbreaking issues or earthshaking resolutions. In Acchamamba’s story, the point is women’s education, a mode of communication between husband and wife, while the husband was held as political prisoner. The story illustrates the main problem, which is the wife’s lack of reading and writing skills, and includes an elaborate discussion of the benefits of women’s education.

In both the stories, the incidents leading to the end are not played out or described in detail, which is common in our narrative technique. They are verbalized in brief statements. In “Women’s Education,” the wife says she would have her younger brother read and write the letters on her behalf. In “The Stories of Our Lives,” peddamma says she was married, her son and daughter were married and so on. Each incident was rounded up in one-liners or a few lines at best.

I thought it would be interesting to study the two stories written in juxtaposition, using the criteria, Mr. Ramachandra Reddy had identified.

The story, “Hard to Believe” brings up yet another question regarding the element of reality in fiction. Can a reader suspend his disbelief in the illusory figment temporarily and enjoy a good story just for its point of view? Is it possible to sift truth from fiction and apply one’s mind to the underlying argument in the story? I liked this story for its narrative technique. While the author addresses a potent issue, a social malignancy, the technique she adopted to tell the story raises questions in regard to its authenticity. Or does it?

Souris’ story, “A Memory” maybe construed as one more romance fiction or a brief peek into a given moment in human psyche based on how we look at it. Some readers may perceive this story as an illustration of a woman’s heartbreak. I am inclined to see it as a stop, a turning point, in one’s lifespan. The key point is, or so it seems, when she asks, “When did all this—the son-in-law, the daughter, and the children–happen?” It would appear that she blocked out, knowingly or unknowingly a considerable portion of her life between the kamini flowers and the grown up children. Strange as it may sound, I have known of male retirees ask the same question after a long period of their public life, “Where are the little children?” The point is we all get carried away by one preoccupation in our lives (the woman in the story enjoyed her husband’s wealth and social status for the time being) and then return to what captured our hearts in our adolescent years.

Souris’ father, Gudipati Venkata Chalam, spent major part of his life on his radical writings, advocating sexual freedom for women and later settled down in Arunachalam for peace. I could envisage him asking himself the same question, “What happened in the past several years?”

On a different note, I am also wondering if the story, “A Memory” was inspired by her father’s story, “O Puvvu Poosindi,” [A Flower Bloomed], a story about a girl’s coming of age.

(©Malathi Nidadavolu)

January 2007