Notes from the Hinterland: Stories and Essays

139 Pages·2019·1.431 MB·English

by  Shashi Tharoor, Ruskin Bond, R.K. Narayan, D.B.G. Tilak, Rahi Masoom Reza, श्रीलाल शुक्ल, Shrilal Shukla, Madhuri Vijay, Abhimanyu Kumar, Snigdha Poonam, Palagummi Sainath

One of the meanings of the word ‘olio’ is ‘a miscellany’. The books in
the Aleph Olio series contain a selection of the finest writing to be
had on a variety of Indian themes—the great cities, aspects of
culture and civilization, and other uniquely Indian phenomena. Filled
with insights and haunting evocations of a country of unrivalled
complexity, beauty, tragedy and mystery, each Aleph Olio book
presents India in ways that it has seldom been seen before.
Also in Aleph Olio
The Essence of Delhi
In a Violent Land
Love and Lust
Forthcoming in Aleph Olio
Ways of Dying
The Book of Kings

ALEPH BOOK COMPANY
An independent publishing firm
promoted by Rupa Publications India
First published in India in 2019
by Aleph Book Company
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New Delhi 110 002
Anthology copyright © Aleph Book Company 2019
Cover image copyright © designer_an/Shutterstock
p. 139 (Acknowledgements) is an extension of the copyright page.
Copyright for the individual pieces and translations vests
in the respective authors and translators.
All rights reserved.
While every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain permission, this has
not been possible in all cases; any omissions brought to our attention will be remedied in
future editions.
In the works of fiction in this anthology, names, characters, places and incidents are either
the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any
actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
In the works of non-fiction, the views and opinions expressed in this book are the authors’
own and the facts are as reported by them, which have been verified to the extent possible,
and the publishers are in no way liable for the same.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in
any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Aleph Book Company.
ISBN: 978-93-88292-55-9
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For sale in the Indian subcontinent only.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be
lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any
form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
Small towns always remind me of death.
My hometown lies calmly amidst the trees,
it is always the same,
in the summer or winter,
with the dust flying,
or the wind howling down the gorge.
—From ‘Small Towns and the River’
by Mamang Dai
A NOTE ON STYLE
As the various stories and essays in this book have been excerpted
from books that have their own styles of spelling Indian words and
proper nouns, no attempt has been made to standardize the text
according to the Aleph house style. The only stylistic rules that have
been observed throughout the book are that British spellings have
been used and Indian words have not been italicized.
CONTENTS
1. SHASHI THAROOR
Scheduled Castes, Unscheduled Change
2. RUSKIN BOND
The Night Train at Deoli
3. R. K. NARAYAN
An Astrologer’s Day
4. D. B. G. TILAK
The Man Who Saw God
Translated from the Telugu by Ranga Rao
5. RAHI MASOOM REZA
A Village Divided
Translated from the Hindi by Gillian Wright
6. SHRILAL SHUKLA
Raag Darbari
Translated from the Hindi by Gillian Wright
7. MADHURI VIJAY
Lorry Raja
8. ABHIMANYU KUMAR
The Lynching That Changed India
9. SNIGDHA POONAM
The Man Who Lived
10. P. SAINATH
Ganpati Yadav’s Gripping Life Cycle
Acknowledgements
Notes on the Contributors
one
~
SCHEDULED CASTES, UNSCHEDULED CHANGE*
SHASHI THAROOR
I was about eight or nine when I first came across Charlis.
A few of us children were kicking a ball around the dusty
courtyard of my grandmother’s house in rural Kerala, where my
parents took me annually on what they called a holiday and I
regarded as a cross between a penance and a pilgrimage. (Their
pilgrimage, my penance.) Balettan, my oldest cousin, who was all of
thirteen and had a bobbing Adam’s apple to prove it, had just
streaked across me and kicked the ball with more force than he
realized he possessed. It soared upwards like a startled bird, curved
perversely away from us, and disappeared over our high brick wall
into the rubbish heap at the back of the neighbour’s house.
‘Damn,’ I said. I had grown up in Bombay where one said things
like that.
‘Go and get it, da,’ Balettan commanded one of the younger
cousins. Da was a term of great familiarity, used especially when
ordering young boys around.
A couple of the kids, stifling groans, dutifully set off toward the wall.
But before they could reach it the ball came sailing back over their
heads towards us, soon followed over the wall by a skinny, sallow
youth with a pockmarked face and an anxious grin. He seemed
vaguely familiar, someone I’d seen in the background on previous
holidays but not really noticed, though I wasn’t sure why.
‘Charlis!’ a couple of the kids called out. ‘Charlis got the ball!’