Book Review: Whom Can I Tell? How Can I Explain? By Saroj Pathak
Quote: But Poorbi was impatient. She was a woman alone, and men were never very trustworthy. If she could once and for all wear the wedding sari that would bind Sambal to her for good! She didn't care about caste or class. The trouble was that she had lost all joy in the red of wedding sari; there was no other reason why she felt hesitant.
An anthology of twelve translated stories that Stree published almost two decades back. My interest grew in the book when one story, The Vow was selected for an upcoming Reader. But due to space and budget crunch, we had to drop it later.
Originally written in Gujarati, Saroj Pathak remains one of the first Indian authors to delve into the psychological and social strains the men, the women and the society go through.
From divorced women to unmarried women to women in an extramarital affair, all sorts of character from lower to upper-middle-class society get a glimpse. She also happens to be the first author to understand the grips of toxic masculinity on both men and women.
Quandary, breaks the image of a manly prince charming a young bride grows up hoping for. Hero-Heroine, made me laugh as she mocks the adolescent love of a boy and a girl who sketch out their romance against imaginary struggles to their happy ending. Whom Can I Tell? How can I Explain? Ballu becomes a victim of his imagination: the protector of chaste women from immoral men. The Vicious Round, was a creepy story that crawled up my skin.
Sarika Caged, The Ace of Trumps, Divorcee dealt with the plight of mad women, widowhood, spinsterhood and place of divorced women in the world.
My favourite story is The Vow. It explains how difficult it is for a lower class-caste woman to survive in a world where she is eyed as a piece of meat. While she yearns her lover as a husband but is held back by her own independence and anonymity a city provides to her. It also shows how difficult it is for men to function in a society that expects them to be a protector and provider with no emotional outlet.
The book had few typographical errors, which as a reader I could ignore, but as an editor of Stree I could not and penned them down.
P.S- It definitely is an interesting book for readers of translation studies. As it is a good example of how regional books can be kept true to an original language without keeping native words in it
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