Express News Service
Sometimes things come together in the most beautiful manner. A writer writes a powerful story in
a regional language, part allegory, part homily, wholly eco-fiction. Then along comes a translator who reads the book in the original language and reaches out to the author, offering to translate it into English. And thus, the work thankfully reaches a wider audience.
This is pretty much what happened with Valli, evocatively written by Sheela Tomy in Malayalam, for which she won the Cherukad Award for Malayalam Literature in 2021. Now the book has been superbly translated into English by Jayasree Kalathil.
Valli is the story of the people who populate the hamlet of Kalluvayal in a portion of the Western Ghats that falls in northern Kerala, of the steady encroachment of tribal lands, the abrogation of tribal rights, the destruction of the land itself, and the intertwined strands of closeness as well as clashes between the denizens of the land.
Anjilikkunil Kochouseph, a “heart-hardened man” from the plains, comes to Wayanad, brings over his kin, builds houses, plants paddy, tapioca and rubber and flourishes in Kalluvayal. The clan dynamics are far from equable and their story is told in absorbing detail. While the people of Kalluvayal are at the forefront, the story is owned by the land itself; verdant, lush, rich with resources, reverenced by the tribals who understand its subterranean song like no outsider can be challenged by the greed of the settlers who come up from the plains with just their single-minded determination to do well.
On this plundered land live the Adivasis, with their beliefs, culture, rights, and their very lives now under threat. The juggernaut of progress rolls on inexorably and we know how this story will end.
The tale begins around the early-70s and tells of the Naxal uprising, and how it was put down. It tells of fascinating women, be it Sara, Susan, Isabella, Kali, the tribal Veda princess of legend, or Unniyachi, the mysterious tribal devadasi deity and how they show sudden flashes of strength and power, and how that too is attempted to be put down as fast as possible.
It introduces us to people like Thommichan, Peter, and Padmanabhan, who know and respect land rights, and try to bring about change through education and indoctrination; these men pay the price for standing in the path of that rolling juggernaut, bringing in its wake resorts, concrete mansions and, of course, the permanent alienation of the tribals.
The passages that describe Wayanad with its gauzy wraps of mist, its ancient trees, the flora and fauna of its jungles, and the swift-flowing Kabani river, fairly take the reader’s breath away. All the characters in Valli are given their many moments in the spotlight, all of them riveting the reader’s attention.
Somewhere near the end of the book, one of the protagonists puts a diary back on her mother’s bookshelf, next to a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book. And the reader is struck by a thought: that Kalluvayalis rather like a Macondo transplanted to Kerala, complete in its coexistence and confrontations, its acts of generosity and malevolence.
But make no mistake. Valli, which can mean vine/ a young girl/ wages/ the earth, in Malayalam,
is an original. It blends environmental concerns with societal dissensions, it pitches oppressors against the victim, and it shows us just what we can and are doing to this land of ours, beyond Wayanad, across the country. There are Biblical quotations, and passages in the Paniya language, followed by a succinct translation by Kalathil, and then there is Tomy’s simple message of conservation which comes through loud and clear. It will indeed be the rare reader who will read Valli and not be affected by it.
Valli blends environmental concerns with societal dissensions and shows us just what we can and are doing to this land of ours
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