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3.1.21

Devi: The Boundless ('யாதுமாகி'யின் ஆங்கில மொழியாக்கம்)- Book Review, Rock Pebbles

 Book Review

Devi: The Boundless – A Daughter’s Inward Journey Novel in Translation | 

M A Susila (Tamil original) | Translated by V Kadambari 

Emerald Publishers, Chennai | 2020 | ISBN 9789389080582 |  220 | pp 191 -Dr. Prakash Bhadury, Assistant Professor of English. 

Brilliantly narrated, Devi: The Boundless displaysM A Susila’s gift of storytelling that shuttles between the past and present,pre and post-independence period of time, adversities and aspirations , setbacks and new hopes, and prejudices and assertion of identity and that makes for seamless narrative of a brave woman’s distinct journey in modern India whose life is at once shocking, yet reverential as she refused to be lost into the crowd of ordinary, into the timid and docile. 

Yadumagi, the  original  novel  in  Tamil,  is,  as  the  translatornotes:  ‘the  fictional autobiography/Biography to recover the past and to pass on the lessons to the future’. The author, M A Susila, a former professor of Tamil is well known translator and author of Tamil literature; her short stories have been translated into various languages and bagged her international honour. When the book is read, it takes a reader through the fragrance of night queen at karaikudi to the unstoppable Ganga at Rishikesh via the tortuous journey of life of Devi in between that marks her indomitable will to brave all the adversities against women in our society andher recovery from the sordid past to glorious future that reverberateswithin as a source of strengthfor whoever reads her story. 

The translator, V. Kadambari, was a Professor of English, Ethiraj College, Chennai and later, headed the Gender Studies in Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development. As a noted translator already, through the present book, she has helped disseminating the unparalleled richness of Tamil literature to the world by breaking the linguistic boundary. The very first reading leaves the impression that she has unlocked the thought processes of Tamil version and locked them into English making the translation perfectly cultural and distinctively creative. The boundary between the two versions might be too thin to be seen. 

The story is narrated through Charu who observes her mother, Devi’s mysteriouslife who would have been buried into oblivion, yet like the night queen, who blossomed without 

Rock Pebbles : ISSN 0975 - 0509 December 2020 / P. 204 

anybody’s knowledge; who shaped her personality and now it is the time to unfold the petals of her frozen life, hence, Devi, the boundless.The story glides through skillfully varied sequence of time, beginning from the description of Devi’s role as the headmistress of a school, her home and flower garden at Karaikudi in 1967 in which the narrator makes sense of her mother’s concealed emotions, mysterious moments of shocks and surprises that lay frozen and that begins to unfold, to the bank of the Ganga at Rishikesh, in 2013 where Charu recalls Devi’s death due to heart attack and seventy-five years of her life’s journey of recovered past. 

Devi, the Tamil Brahmingirl was the victim of child marriage; she lost her husband at the age of nine,even before knowing the meaning of marriage and was sent to the ice house, a shelter for widowed women where she continued in whitesari, tonsured head, dry drab life of stoic suffering for absolutely no fault of hers.Her orthodox grandmother arranged her marriage for the crude belief that a girl is someone’s else’s property hence, no need of education! She missed two years of studies but with the support of her father and brother she could continue her aim as she knew that education was her sword in her battle ahead. She bore the brunt of such comment: “Are you going to make this widow a collector (p.90)?” But in her inner core, she is a Vedanti and a pragmatist both at a time that shine through her detachment to all that she does with the exception that she is attached to the noble cause for others what engaged her helping the poor students in education, arranging meals for poor girls, helping in getting jobs and supporting all whoever was around her, no matter she was cheated or scorned on occasions during her intercourse of life. 

Finally, at Rishikesh in a somber ambience, Charu recalls so many hidden facts of Devi’s life known from her twin-like colleague, Sylvia who gave hints of seven decades of Devi’s war against society, for her firmness of purpose, her iron will and indomitable spirit to face all challenges. Devi’s war and victory is every woman’s war and victory; she would ever shine in the firmament of all brave women who found life against all odds. She flows without turning to look back.

Rock Pebbles : ISSN 0975 - 0509 December 2020 / P. 205 


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