Father May Be an Elephant, and Mother Only a Small Basket, but...

These stories explore the complexities of caste and gender roles in rural India, challenging societal expectations and showcasing the resilience of the human spirit.
Shyamala's collection of short stories explores the complexities of caste and gender roles in rural India, challenging societal expectations and showcasing the resilience of the human spirit. The stories are rendered with idiomatic vitality, humor, and lightness, forcing the reader to question their expectations of violence and what the short story can be and do.

Format: Paperback / softback
Publication date: 31 March 2022
Publisher: Tilted Axis Press

A young girl is sent away to school to save her from being declared the sexual property of the villages upper-caste men. The village water tank laments to a passing child. A Brahmin boy is considered 'polluted by the touch of a Dalit girl – the same action that saved his life.

Rendered with idiomatic vitality, humor, and lightness, these stories revel in rural childhood without nostalgia or romanticism, forcing the reader to question their expectation of violence in the representation of certain lives, and of what the short story can be and do.

Shifts in tone and perspective reveal relationships – between the different castes that make up a village, between an individual and the wider community, between identities and the seasonal rhythms of the land. Imbued throughout with a Dalit feminist philosophy that is above all a philosophy of life, to be lived with wit, ingenuity, and defiance.

"Shyamala does not moralize or overly politicize grief and suffering... the descriptions possess an astonishing clarity of visual and sensual delight."

'Luminous, moving, and funny... almost deceptive in its lightness of touch, and deftness of language.' - Tehelka

'That Shyamala avoids a bleakness of tone while leaving alive the possibilities of violence is a tribute to her mastery over the short story form.' - Mint Lounge

'Gogu Shyamala uses her expressive prose to convert caste and gender oppression into stories about human dignity.' - Outlook

Weight: 202g
Dimension: 128 x 198 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781911284741