Flight From Familiarity

An innovative voice makes this collection of stories a treat

KALA KRISHAN RAMESH

I HAD A great time reading Kuzhali Manickavel’s Insects Are Just Like You And Me Except Some Of Them Have Wings. The stories are well written, of course, but what really gets you is the variety, the sheer unpredictably of them. Some are about the oddest things, others about the most commonplace; the most peculiar things happen in some, while in others nothing happens at all. Some characters are “normal”; others may have wings coming out of their backs or will be pulling cats out of their mouths. You just can’t say which way a story will turn.

Be warned, though. You might get a bit unsettled if you bring maintrack reading habits into this semi-surreal, sometimes magical realistic, sometimes deadpanbizarre, sometimes nihilistic place, where nothing need do what it’s supposed to be doing.

These are the bylanes where middles are more likely to be not in the middle and no end comes, even after the action rises, falls and appears to be done. Here, style may take the place of character and narrative may not figure at all in the way that you mostly expect it to.

I thoroughly enjoyed several of the stories in this collection of 35, both the really short ones as well as the longer ones. However, there must be a reason that all three of my favourites — “The Dynamics of Windows”, “Suicide Letter is the Most Common Form of Letter”, “Flying and Falling” — are among the longest of the stories here.

Perhaps this is because with the longer stories, there is so much more room for the characters to move, and for the reader to actually get a sense of where they are and what is around them. There is so much more time to listen to the fall of the characters’ lives and to look at the possible turns they, and the story, might take.

The one and two-pagers are not bad reading at all: “Do You Know How to Twist with Girls Like This?”, “Cats and Fish”, “The Perimeter” are non-simplistic and intriguing. Each of these three stories takes you to where you either have a ringside view of the small dramas inherent in all kinds of little events, or you are in a world where someone has undone the seams of possibility.

In these stories, sometimes an event, sometimes a line, and sometimes just the way a character is, has this ability to insist that you see, without the anesthesia of description or logic. Consider these: “Everyone must keep a box of things they don’t understand and can’t throw away” or “Even Dalit Christian lesbians who write feminist manifestos are allowed to drown in wells” or “Sri Lankan Tamils. It’s like they are trying to sing but their voice never quite takes off” or “Selva and I are cursed. We have silhouettes that don’t fit anywhere”.

Kuzhali’s writing sends you shooting off into her stories with a crazy shove, after which you will find yourself rushing around on your

INSECTS ARE JUST LIKE YOU AND ME EXCEPT SOME OF THEM HAVE WINGS Kuzhali Manickavel Blaft 142 pp; Rs 195

own. The aftermath is a well-observed thoughtfulness that shows you stuff about stuff that you know is true, because it’s stuff you have seen and known. For example, in the story about Mira, who has “streamlined down to the shape of a pin”, the writer says, “Some girls naturally turn into pockets” and the lives of all the girls you ever knew that did turn into pockets, holding god-knows-what, will rush out of your knowing.

What is disappointing are the illustrations: they are forced and very forgettable, although they might make you smile.

If the reader thinks that these stories are there so briefly, like distant, exotic relatives who you unexpectedly share an intimate holiday with but who cannot stay, consider that on the other side, you have the staying pleasures of the family!

I look forward to whatever unexpected delights and revelations Kuzhali’s next book might bring with a sense of committed interest because I feel that I’ve been in an adventure that I would like to repeat. •