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India Booked | Timeless Tales from Marwar
107 Plays4 years ago
For centuries, Rajasthan has been a gold mine of oral traditions and histories, with Padma Shri Vijaydan Detha being one of the foremost storytellers of all time. His stories, collected from the common folk of Rajasthan, mark an important intervention in 20th century Rajasthani literature.
Giving a new lease of life to his writings, Timeless Tales from Marwar is a handpicked collection of folk tales from the everlasting works of Detha’s celebrated Batan ri Phulwari meaning ‘Garden of Tales’. Collected and written over the span of nearly fifty years, this fourteen-volume assortment of Rajasthani folk stories earned him the moniker-the Shakespeare of Rajasthan.
On this episode of India Booked, Ayushi Mona talks to Vishes Kothari, a financial consultant, native of Sadulpur in Rajasthan with a keen interest in the oral and musical traditions of his state.
He has been associated with UNESCO-Sahapedia on projects focussed on the musical traditions of women in Rajasthan, and as a language expert with the Jaipur Virasat Foundation.
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Transcript
Introduction to India Booked Podcast
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm your host Aayushi Mona and you're listening to India Booked, a podcast where we lean into the idea of India through its literature and we speak to authors who bring this to life. Hi everyone, I am Aayushi Mona, your host on India Booked, a podcast where we lean into the idea of India through the voice of its literature.
Guest Vishish Kothari and His Work
00:00:41
Speaker
Today, I'm extremely excited to have with me Vishish Kothari. Vishish has translated Vijay Dandeta's work into a book called Timeless Tales from Marwar. For those of you who are not familiar with this, Rajasthani writer Vijay Dandeta is one of the most prolific and celebrated literary voices in India. He's written hundreds of stories, short stories and poems.
00:01:09
Speaker
He's been conferred the Padmashti Rajasthan Ratna award as well as the Sahitya Kadhimi award. What is I think most important about his legacy is that while he might have been a prolific writer, he really changed the landscape for literature originating from Rajasthan because he took a conscious decision to go back and write in his mother tongue.
00:01:35
Speaker
And Vishish kudos to you for actually taking that ahead.
Vishish's Connection to Rajasthani Culture
00:01:40
Speaker
And Vishish, welcome to the show. We're extremely glad to have you with us. Hi. Good evening. Thank you for having me. Thank you. It's my pleasure.
00:01:50
Speaker
So Vishish, you're a financial consultant by profession and you took a keen interest in the oral and music traditions of Rajasthan. And you've also been associated with, say, the UNESCO Sahapedia project on the musical traditions of women in Rajasthan.
00:02:08
Speaker
And you're a language expert with the Jaipur Virasa Foundation. I have to add to this before anything else. Was the inspiration to translate part of one of your projects? Or have you been fascinated with the works of Mr. Data? What came first?
00:02:32
Speaker
I am native to Rajasthan myself and that means that many of these stories, so just to give people who are listening a little bit of context, which is our folk stories which he collected,
00:02:47
Speaker
We can talk more about this, but there are folk stories which he collected for nearly 50 years from the common people of Rajasthan. He would approach older women, he would find daily wage workers, leather workers, Dalit women, Atipasis, wandering monks, poets, bards, minstrels, anyone he could find who had a story to tell.
00:03:07
Speaker
He would be with them. He'd write down their stories or he'd create recordings out of those and Then thereafter, you know, he would whenever he had enough number of stories He would rewrite these stories and they would be published in the form of a book These books came to be called the batali full body which literally translates into the garden of tales They were published between the 60s and I think the final one came on in 2007. So it's nearly 50 years over which these books were published and in these books capture in them
00:03:36
Speaker
You know, the very diverse oral traditions of storytelling of Rajasthan. What that has meant for me, Aayushi, is that many of these stories, at least some of them were directly familiar to me. For example, the story of Jintiya, which is there in this book, which is a story which almost all children from Rajasthan and even diaspora, all of us have heard of it, heard of this story in various, in one or other versions. But all of us are familiar with this story. There's so many stories and stories which revolve around sayings.
00:04:03
Speaker
or a muhabra as we say and the story is crafted around that particular saying or muhabra those sayings and context are deeply familiar to me other than that even the stories themselves the story lines themselves are new the characters the settings their expressions the way they are abusing the way they laugh the way they think these are settings that are deeply familiar to me
00:04:23
Speaker
So when I read these stories, there was always obviously this connection that you feel that these stories are also part of your, is also part of my inheritance. Because these are stories that I have also listened to that belong to contexts which I also come from. That was one part of the appeal which is deeply personal.
Political Motivations in Rajasthani Literature
00:04:41
Speaker
And secondly was the fact that I really identified with Dita's politics as well, where he said that Rajasthani is a language which is distinct from Hindi.
00:04:49
Speaker
We have suffered post-independence from this imposition of Hindi upon us and this wishing away of a unique distinct and cultural linguistic identity. And therefore, Data took this conscious call that he would not write in Hindi, but he would write in Rajasthani. That politics is something that closely struck a chord with me. And I felt that if this literature from Rajasthan, which can be brought to readers in English,
00:05:15
Speaker
Even though it sounds counter-intuitive, but this act can also create increased awareness that there is a vast body of literature which exists in Rajasthani, that there is a distinct linguistic identity which Rajasthani has. So I think those points, those two levels, the personal and, well, it sounds like a bit of a cliche, but maybe the personal and the political.
00:05:35
Speaker
But those were two levels at which there was an immediate appeal of Ditha's works. And thereafter, you know, I was at Ashoka University. High friends and colleagues were writers and translators. They suggested to me this idea that, you know, it's a classic which comes from Raj, it's a classic Rajasthani prose classic. You have first language familiarity in English as well as the source language Rajasthani. So why didn't you give it a go? And then after the process took its own.
00:06:03
Speaker
time from there. So that was roughly the process or you know my journey into this translation exercise.
00:06:13
Speaker
Great. You actually bought the whole person in the political piece up. And perhaps I know this is a book about folk tales. And we will speak about, say, all the wondrous and stories, et cetera. But just to begin with, right, a lot of people speak Rajasthani, right? But their language doesn't even have constitution recognition for one of the most populated large states of the nation, right?
00:06:42
Speaker
And it's also, some of it perhaps is that it's not considered a language of elites. I don't know. So why is it that the disregard to the language and hence, you know, Vijay Dandedha's role in actually making this very conscious decision to write in the native as opposed to Hindi or
00:07:08
Speaker
and on the language becomes a very important decision. Thanks, Aushi, for this question. So this particular question of how exactly Rajasani ended up in this situation, it's a tricky question because it is a part of this very complex social, political movements which begin and are centered around the independence movement and happening in newly independent India.
00:07:37
Speaker
And I'm not an authority on modern India or colonial India or 20th century India, so on and so forth. So I should not be venturing into holding forth too much on this issue, but I do have a brief idea and I can just quickly walk us through what exactly has happened.
00:07:54
Speaker
which is that yes, the language currently has 6 crore plus speakers at the very least in one of its many forms Rajasthani has many forms which are spoken in different regions but that doesn't take away from the fact that these are closely related forms which have had their own distinct trajectory of historical development there's a distinct tradition of written literature in Rajasthan which goes back at least to the 9th century which is what is the accepted
00:08:21
Speaker
You know version, you know accepted by historians as well. There has been enough amount of literature which is produced in the courtly Context in courtly Rajasthan on poetics. There are records the courtly archives. There are books on, you know
00:08:37
Speaker
There are the epic ballads. There are the love ballads or the epic ballads. There are folk stories. So there is the bath literature and the kyat literature of Rajasthan. So there's a vast variety of literary literature in Rajasthan, which exists all the way up to the 19th century. In the turn of the 20th century, what exactly happens is that Hindi is put forth as this unifying force. And there is this idea that we have to create
00:09:06
Speaker
this Indian identity and perhaps it's somewhat in the style of the European nation state just as Germany is for the German speaking people and France is for the French speaking peoples that India will become this language of Hindi speaking people so that is you know what the slogan comes about Hindi, Hindu and Hindustan.
00:09:25
Speaker
And in this race which happens or in the trust of this movement which gathers extreme force, people from Rajasthan themselves very actively put their force behind Hindi because they feel that people are trying to say that don't talk about how we are different but talk about how we are similar, talk about what unites us. And Hindi is trying to be put forward as this lingua franca which will unify
00:09:53
Speaker
and create this pan-Indian identity. So a very reductive account of what is happening but people from Rajasan actively get involved in this struggle and people are promised that after independence of course all the languages will get their due but right now we must ensure that Hindi is going to be declared as the official language of India.
00:10:11
Speaker
Of course, we know that this project overall remains a failure. South India rejects this. The Northeast rejects this. Bengal rejects this. Maharashtra rejected this. So on and so forth. But it became this large success in what has become called the Hindi belt of North India. And Hindi has had this relationship with many other regional languages. I'm not saying Rajasani is a unique one, which has found itself in that spot. So many other regional languages today.
00:10:38
Speaker
interpreted or are thought of as dialects of Hindi whereas it is really the reverse it is from these dialects it is on the stilts of these dialects that Hindi was you know constructed whereas it is not that dialects have emerged out of Hindi that is not the historical trajectory which has happened so Rajasthani is one of the many languages in North India which had been denied their due however possibly it is the among the larger larger ones it is among the
00:11:05
Speaker
the more widely spoken ones because in that the entire state of Rajasthan you will find if you leave the urban and cosmopolitan centers it is a Rajasani language which is being spoken by people.
00:11:15
Speaker
So from the 50s and 60s itself, a movement begins to gather steam that Rajasthani language must be given its recognition. This movement still continues to this day. I wouldn't say it's politically a very strong movement. However, it is a significant movement and there's enough talk and debate and discourse about this in the Rajasthani literary circles in the Hindi, in the vernacular media in Rajasthan, so on and so forth. So that very briefly is just positing Vijayan Dita in context that he's among the
00:11:44
Speaker
people who have seen India get newly independent.
Rebellion Through Rajasthani Oral Tradition
00:11:47
Speaker
He's one of those people, he was born in 1927, he would have been 20 years old. So of course he gets politically sucked into this movement. And by the time we're in the late 50s and 60s, there are many people who are beginning to question that why people from Rajasthan must not be able to have a language which they can call their own. And Dita becomes a part of that quarter of people in the 60s, in the late 50s and 60s.
00:12:14
Speaker
You know, this was such a great, you know, illustration of the whole context to this. And it really, you know, something that I really want to tie into this is the introduction that's at the beginning of Genia, right? Because, of course, all of the stories in the book begin with an anecdote that sort of pertains to the introduction.
00:12:40
Speaker
But a particular anecdote there says that, you know, but how was I to acquire the skill of writing in it, which is writing in Rajasthani and he
00:12:52
Speaker
says that what and then Babasa tells him that what silliness is this you were writing well in Hindi and readers were reading your work and praising you and then where will you find readers for Ajasthani go back to your village the stories that on their strength alone have survived in the memories of people nurture them with your craft
00:13:14
Speaker
And a little back in the conversation you mentioned this in passing right, that he actually, Vijay Dandita actually spoke to people of the soil and the salt and farmers and tillers and women and workers and that is
00:13:36
Speaker
a legacy which then became these stories and are now, of course, accessible to us. A lot of readers like me who didn't probably read in any language other than English or Hindi or maybe perhaps one or two different languages. And it allows us to read these translated thesis
00:14:01
Speaker
and open our eyes because I think and why I bring up the fact that he went back and really started speaking to the common man and most importantly the common woman because a lot of these stories have picked up and been built up from there is because during this narrative and the work that Vijay Dandedha did
00:14:27
Speaker
He has also changed the perception of Rajasthan to an outsider, right? Because a lot of imagination around folk culture in Rajasthan is still very regal or royal or pertains to royalty or of warriors, right? Really as much as the everyday stories that you see, actually that you read in the book,
00:14:55
Speaker
So what was this journey of actually accumulating these stories like? And how does something like Timeless Tales from Mayra actually even break that perception mold that a lot of people have about Rajasthan only being a place where folklores and folktales are popular stories that
00:15:24
Speaker
have come in are largely of royals and warriors and kings. And that's why I usually say that Deitha is such an interesting character because you know he is not. So there's really two things which he's challenging over here when he begins his task of writing Pulwadi in the late 50s. Not only is he challenging the imposition of Hindi or the hegemony of Hindi or the imposition of Hindi.
00:15:53
Speaker
He's also challenging the hegemony of the written word because he decides that, you know, why must there be greater legitimacy to the literature which has been passed on to us in our manuscripts and in our scriptures and, you know, was produced in the courts, but why is there greater legitimacy to this literature while there is none given to our vast oral tradition which exists?
Challenges of Translating Oral to Written Form
00:16:19
Speaker
And he realizes that the written word has always been written either by or from the point of view of the elites of society because you would have to have been either the king to have a literary chronicle commissioned by a court poet or you would have to have been a very rich merchant to be commissioning maybe your life story or something of that sort or a genealogy for your family.
00:16:44
Speaker
or you would have had to be maybe you know if you're writing scripture you would belong to the liturgical elite or the Brahminic elite you would be belonging to the priestly class however what happens to the vast literature which exists in Rajasan of the common people which is you know it is so much more in volume and it is so much more diverse it has such a multiplicity of voices and Dita is simultaneously challenging both of these so when he decides to go and write back in Rajasan to go back and begin writing in Rajasani
00:17:12
Speaker
But not only that, he begins deciding that his stories will be based on folk stories which Adivasi who are travelling through his village have to tell him.
00:17:20
Speaker
or some old woman in his family, he asked her to remember stories which she heard while she was growing up as a child. It is really a radical act and we must not, in any sense, underplay its importance because it would have been, it still is a very brave task, but still today we've made so much more progress in terms of understanding of things. Today our understanding of things has shifted so much more, but in the time he's doing it, it must have been
00:17:46
Speaker
Literally, suicide, it must have been vocational suicide, it must have been so many forms of rebellion happening at the same time. But for him to do it, it must have required a lot of bravery for him to do it. I do know that his family and him both went through a hard time financially because there wasn't really any money in this, there wasn't really any support in this, there wasn't really any freedom based in this. I think it's only in the 70s, in the mid-70s, when the Sahitya Academy Award for Rajasani is constituted,
00:18:14
Speaker
and he gets the first award for volume 10 of Rajabhatali Fulwadi. That volume gets translated into Hindi and that was the time when he really begins to hit this national stage because then his stories get picked up by Shyam Benegal who makes Charan Das Chor out of it, by Habib Tanbir who makes a play based on his stories.
00:18:34
Speaker
Slowly in the 80s, you know, Mani Kaul has picked up on it. He makes Dhuvedha. Then you have Prakash Chah who makes Parinati out of it. And then of course in the 2000s, you have Pahili, the movie which is based out of it. So it is then really from the mid 70s onwards that he actually begins to get some returns, he begins to get some rewards, he begins to get some recognition for his work. Before that, he's largely writing
00:18:58
Speaker
for maybe a very small but a select audience based or reader based within Rajasthan and that was where his name was confined to. So it was surely not an easy choice that this journey down which he embarked. You are right that for many reasons Rajasthan remains almost stuck in this idea of this pastiche almost between the fort and the palace and the build Maharani and this brilliant warrior.
00:19:27
Speaker
And there is really not much else that you see coming out of Rajasthan. One part of it is, of course, the tourist industry, which tries to this kind of, you know, describe, try to this kind of museumization of culture almost, because, you know, it is, it is a part of the charm of Rajasthan that, you know, this is anachronistic state of forts and palaces and, you know, sand dunes, etc., which are all true. There's no denying that it's, but, you know, it has just come to preponder over all else in our imagination.
00:19:57
Speaker
And Dita's work, you really begin to see completely another side. And he says that, you know, I don't write about forts and palaces and kings and queens. I write about the common man. And in the Thakkar's ghost, which is a story, he says, I'm just wanting to quote, he says, and I began to find a new respect for the exploited classes of society. There is a sense of this in every letter of my full body. I was born into the Charan caste.
00:20:26
Speaker
But I have sung praises of toil and sweat and have left no stone unturned in insulting those elites who survive on the toil of others." So that is a little quote. Just to give you some context, the Charan caste in Rajasthan is a caste of bards and genealogists who were largely associated with courtly patronage. So most of the writing from Charan, which you will find, you will find that there are historical chronicles or courtly chronicles
00:20:51
Speaker
or of a, you know, of a religious nature, you know, data for him to be from the charanghast of poets and, you know, literatures, so to say, but instead to, you know, to change the vision totally, you know, and to write about people, the common man, you know, it gives you further context into how many kinds of rebellion he's engaged in. I have one another quick, one of these epigraphs which I want to read out from. It's the one from the last story, which is called Jarav Masi's Tales. And he says, my village was my university and my literary education.
00:21:21
Speaker
if any, came from rural women who always had so many interesting stories, anecdotes and wisdom to share. When men my age went out to hunt or drink, I used to sit in my courtyard listening to what the women had to say, their gossip, their tall tales. At one point I specifically started to invite all the women, all the women who were just willing to sit with me and talk. There were days when I was surrounded by women, lost in conversation for hours at an end. So that gives you some
00:21:50
Speaker
further picture into Detha, his craft, his time, and where exactly he's positioned in terms of his literary work. You know, Vishish, thank you so much. Sometimes when I listen to authors speak, I'm almost in a state of trance. And that's exactly what happened here. Because I really, and of course,
00:22:19
Speaker
These are questions that every translator gets asked, but to be a translator,
00:22:27
Speaker
it is no easy task even if because it does just go beyond the fact that oh you can speak both these languages so hey come and then you know turn this into another work of literature while keeping the essence of the writer intact but in your case it's very fascinating because in some ways right you are translating a translator because he's
00:22:52
Speaker
consuming these stories and he's putting them together and you've worked upon them and added another layer. And it's also interesting because of this whole, I would say flux between oral and written literature, right? That obviously oral accounts go through so many versions. So as a translator, did you decide to stick to authenticity because
00:23:20
Speaker
you were going to just pick Vijayan Deva's work and show it for what it was. But again, in his case, he got it from people who have heard it over generations. So what was that process like for you? It's just so fascinating to hear you take us through this journey.
00:23:44
Speaker
Aushi, I think again I want to just quote Vijayandita over here. He says that there are no original stories, there are just tellings and retellings. And this really fits in perfectly with the very idea of oral traditions, isn't it? That there aren't really any original stories, there isn't really any author, but there are just people who choose to tell a story at a particular time in a particular way and that just happens to be the story which is told then and there.
00:24:11
Speaker
And this is the very nature of oral traditions. Deitha himself, I think of it as he was translating from the oral to the written. So he was translating form. And I was given the task of translating from Rajasani to English. I was trying to translate across language. So yes, maybe, yes, you can look upon Deitha as a collector.
00:24:34
Speaker
of stories as someone who was translating stories. But I do genuinely think that Deta would have had to do a lot of work on these stories, which is beyond mere transcription, because he did cast these stories from a point of view or in a form which was different. I don't think they are purely redacted in their traditional forms. There have been changes, very subtle changes, which is introduced where
00:25:03
Speaker
He's changed the points of view or where he's changed the questions and suddenly the story suddenly becomes contemporary or suddenly becomes relevant. It suddenly becomes so fitting to the context in which we are sitting today. There's a story called
00:25:17
Speaker
I think it's called the learning of toil. Yes, it's called the learning of toil, which is a story which is of a conversation between an old woman and Raja Bhut. And it feels so fitting to the entire theme of sycophancy, where you have people who are not able to speak to power and there's a woman
00:25:34
Speaker
I don't want to let the story out of the bank. But anyhow, it felt very fitting when I was translating it. It feels very fitting when I've had the chance to read out an excerpt from it. And people have told me that they've also felt that the story is very contemporary. It's very relevant despite the fact that it goes back at least 400, 500 years in origin. And well, that's a compliment to me because that means at least some part of my task I've been able to do.
00:25:59
Speaker
Yes, oral traditions are of that nature. They are always changing, they are always mutating. They are fluid in form. Data is having to, of course, translate medium and I'm having to translate language. The task of translating, I'm not a trained translator. This is my first book. I had never thought of myself as a translator either.
00:26:23
Speaker
But once I got down to it, I thought of two main features of these stories. One was, of course, the fact that they are older traditions. So it was very important for me to achieve or maintain or conserve this lightness of form or this lightness of telling which Detha achieves. It is very much like a storytelling session when we read his works in Rajasthani.
00:26:45
Speaker
It appears that the Sutra Dhar is sitting in front of us and he's just knitting a story to us. And he achieves this particular style of the folktale. It was very important for me to be able to achieve that, the orality. And the second thing which was important for me to create was a sense of regionality. Because Dita, of course, he was writing Rajasthani folktales in Rajasthani. So the people who were reading it were familiar with the culture, were familiar with the context, with the food, with the geography, with what people wear, with how old people speak, with how they curse, how young men curse, and how it's different.
00:27:14
Speaker
So on and so forth. But I was having to present this culture to an uninitiated reader. So it was important to convey a sense of region where these stories were written from. It was important to
00:27:25
Speaker
retain some of that, the texture of the original language, its cadence, its lilt. And so I tried to create a sense of regionality in the prose. I don't know if it has been successful or not, that is for either of us to tell me, but those are the two main guiding principles which I evolved. And thereafter I went about it line by line. Of course, there was a lot of rounds of work that I had to put into it. In the sense, there was a lot of back and forth between me and the editors. There were some things
00:27:54
Speaker
which are purely spoken forms or expressions of constructs, which I wasn't familiar with, because there are some regional variations in that style. I come from the Bikaner region, Biji comes from the Jodhpur region.
00:28:09
Speaker
There was something which had fallen out of use. We don't use it in my generation anymore, but I had to go to older people to ask them the meanings of something which I was able to find the meaning of only when I visited Jodhpur, I visited Bijee's village. So I was able to understand more closely that these are the constructs of which they use in the Malabar region. So now it makes more sense to me. It was a process where all these little things came together to finally put this entire thing together.
00:28:36
Speaker
this patchwork you know together so thereafter yes there were many different elements but primarily those two guiding principles for me. I can't believe that you know we are half an hour into this conversation and this has been so fluid and wonderful and to listen to this and learn from this will change because
00:28:59
Speaker
I think half an hour later I'm going to ask you about the major work which has 30s themselves because it has been so immersive to just listen to this context and the richness
00:29:12
Speaker
to the background of these stories and it's also made me muse because when we as readers read, we just see a final product in our hands and we consume it for what it is. But to know of what went behind it in the context has been
00:29:31
Speaker
marvelous and I really enjoyed it for one. I also think and because you mentioned regionality and the orality and since I've read the book I can at least for myself say that I think you've managed to bring both those things into the book. Thank you. Also this is now this is a puffin classic right so this is geared towards children which is
00:29:59
Speaker
which is perhaps the case almost everywhere that we tend to give our children our folk tales and our stories, whether it's through our panchay tantra or whether it's through tales that our grandparents or parents tell us. But did you have something in mind? Because I think a couple of times you've mentioned that say a particular way men curse and you know, so did you have to
00:30:28
Speaker
I won't use the word censor, but did you look at making this book appropriate for children in any way? Or did you pretty much go ahead with it as is? Honestly, since I've read it, I can tell you that it can be enjoyed and read by every adult, much like, you know, the original works of Grimm's or a Charles Perrault or whatever.
00:30:52
Speaker
But really, I wanted to understand your take on writing for the Puffin audience in mind. Very honest, Ayushi, it was just the way things turned out. It wasn't really a part of a plan. It so happened that things worked out. I was put in touch with the commissioning editor for the Puffin Classic or for the children's section at Penguin.
Publishing and Audience of 'Timeless Tales'
00:31:22
Speaker
And, you know, they picked it up as a regional classic because they are working on bringing out regional classics, which they want to present as part of Coffin Classics. So yes, it was just the way things turned out, to be very honest. However, I think both my editor and me were clear on this, that this is, it's not, I wouldn't say it's a book for children, but in that it's suitable for people 10 years and upwards.
00:31:51
Speaker
So in some sense, I think of it like in its original context, even though, for example, okay, let's, let's, let's put it like this, that in its original context, you know, these stories would have been, you know, it would have been for mass entertainment also. Right. So for example, so for example,
00:32:14
Speaker
There are some stories which are meant for children, which are what mothers and grandmothers tell, for example, the children when they put them to sleep at night, bedtime deals. Then there are some stories which are religious in nature and they are sermons and you know, people or a monk who's giving a sermon will use a particular story as an illustrative point. Then there are stories
00:32:36
Speaker
which, you know, there's maybe a wandering, there's a bard or a minstrel who's come to the village today. And for evening's entertainment, the entire village will gather in the evening and there'll be an evening of entertainment where a story will be exchanged. There are stories which people, which farmers maybe tell themselves at night when they're guarding their fields. You know, they will tell each other stories to pass time. So stories arise in so many contexts. Some are exclusively for children. Some are in more, a multi-generational context where the entire family will gather.
00:33:04
Speaker
So I have tried to choose a broad selection of all different types of stories. While some stories definitely are very directly intended as children's tales, and I intended to be told only to children, most stories I feel are multi-generation, I felt were multi-generation in nature, in that they would have probably been enjoyed by everyone listening, whether it is, or they would have been meant for everyone listening, whether it's a sermon on say the fact that greed is
00:33:32
Speaker
Agree or avarice is bad or causes harm or whether it is, you know, this deal of fantasy in adventure, like nagan mere line prosper, which is about this fantastical story of, you know, this how this nagan, nagan committed life of a young, of a childless couple.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yes, even the Kailoo tree I felt, right? Yes, Kailoo tree, again, you know, it's formed on a superficially sealed somewhat like a children's tale. But, you know, I feel that there are many layers. So I actually thought of it like maybe like a Bollywood film, you know, which is rated, you know, suitable for children of 12, upwards, and the entire family goes and enjoys it. But there's some, but it's layered, you know, in that there is everyone who finds something in it for themselves, you know, so it's not just
00:34:20
Speaker
reductive in nature. But at the same time, maybe it has one degeneration and appeal, which is what these stories originally would have been intended for most of these stories anyway. So I think I thought of it in that manner. Yes, there were some constraints which came about immediately because of the fact of it being a puffin classic. There was there were some stories from my long list that we had to remove because, you know, they would have had to be sanitized to the point where they would have lost their meaning.
00:34:48
Speaker
So I preferred not to have those instead. There were a couple of contexts as well where some explicit references, expletives or references to sex, because these stories were extremely explicit. I have to say that most of these stories in language, in theme, they're extremely explicit.
00:35:08
Speaker
And that really ties into a large sociological difference that we have today regarding who we regard as children today. I may not have been necessarily people regarded as children at that point of time. You must realize that
00:35:23
Speaker
Children, for example, the age of 10, 11 or 12, things which are explicitly sexual in nature may not have been thought too inappropriate for them because they would have been married in a year, year, year and a half anyway. So, you know, maybe these stories were a part of their essential sex education and the way in which
00:35:42
Speaker
this kind of knowledge was transmitted from one generation to another. But today there are certain things and stories which we don't consider appropriate for our children and that is the changed social reality today. And we did have to adapt somewhat, very limited I would say, kudos to the publishers, to my editors for being very flexible and being very open-minded on that. But there was some, there was some sanitization that did have to be done, which came from the fact of it being a pop and classic.
Favorite Stories and Recommendations
00:36:13
Speaker
Vaishyesh, which is your favourite out of all of these? I think the story, I do have a few favourites actually, so it's a bit difficult, but I think the two which really I always enjoy, one is Nagan Meer Line Prosper, which was the story I just mentioned, and the other one which I like is The Learning of Toy, which is the story between conversation between Raja Bho, Jen and all.
00:36:42
Speaker
Also, I have to ask you, if you were to recommend a book to the listeners, right? Perhaps from the author himself or otherwise also, right? A book that you think would be fascinating for someone to read in this context, perhaps. Otherwise, what is a book that you would like to recommend? Do you mean in the context of literature from Rajasthan or Centaurim Rajasthan?
00:37:12
Speaker
Either that or another, you know, perhaps a Hindi work of Vijay Dandedha or one of his works in Rajasthani. Perhaps other works besides your own from the author and a book in this context as well. We are greedy. So I'm asking you for now three recommendations, literally.
00:37:36
Speaker
Yes, yes. So I'll take them one by one. So Vijay Dandletha's work, it was all the collective works, I think other than a couple of stories, I think all stories of his were published in his Bhattani full body. To my knowledge, there is one translation currently which is available and is in print, which is by Christy Merrill and was I think it came out in 2009, 2010.
00:38:03
Speaker
of some of his works. I haven't read the translation myself. So Vijayanandita's work in translation in English, unfortunately, I am not fully, you know, I'm not in a position to recommend any other work because I know of one which is currently available and I haven't
00:38:24
Speaker
There are his works which have been translated into Hindi. His family has currently, just this year at the Jaipur Literature Festival, it was ready and the family has commissioned, they commissioned a translator to translate the Bataani Fulwari into Hindi. It's called Batokhi Palia. And that I believe is available now. Again, I haven't read it because I was more, I was definitely looking, or I preferred reading the stories in the original in Rajasthani.
00:38:52
Speaker
So I have not read the books in Hindi. So that tackles works by Vikram Deetha, work from Rajasthan. In English, well, I can recommend English writing. I think Anukrati Upadhyaya's Bhari, which I have read. That is, it's a very different type of story, of course. But I think it is also very
00:39:22
Speaker
rooted in its milieu. It is very rooted in Rajasthan, its traditions and its people and its seasons and their food. So if people are looking for something which carries a lot of that flavor, I would recommend Anuprithi Ji's
00:39:39
Speaker
Books, I believe I'm aware that she's got a new book. Kintsugi has also just come out though I haven't yet been able to leave my hands on it But those are two recommendations if one is reading in Hindi, I would recommend
00:39:56
Speaker
She is based in Calcutta and she writes about the Rajasthani migrant experience and she writes primarily about the Marwadi community which has settled in Calcutta.
00:40:13
Speaker
I would not say it's too specific to a particular community or it has not become self-absorbed. It is at once about modernity, about this movement of people who come from villages but make their way into the middle class.
00:40:30
Speaker
and so on and so forth. So at once it becomes socially, it becomes political, it is historical and it is about a lot of things which we in contemporary India relate to, despite the fact that it is centered on the inner and outer lives of a very particular community who are the Marwadi community who moved out from Rajasthan and have settled in Bengal. So Alka Saragi's work is also work that I would recommend firstly.
00:40:56
Speaker
Thank you so much. This was a wonderful recommendation. I'm going to read Alka Saragi's book. Coincidentally, I'm talking to Andhakriti next week and I just finished reading her new book and I have signed copies of her first book and I've read them. So it was quite nice to sort of have
00:41:19
Speaker
and you know you mentioned her because there's this bulb that went up above my head and I was like ah that's nice but I will definitely read Anka's works which is it's been absolutely marvelous talking to you I don't know where time has flown much like listening to folk tales
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:41:40
Speaker
you know, where one doesn't know from once upon a time to bitches, to fairies, to magic and animals talking. One is transported in time, listening to you. I was also transported in time. Thank you so much for doing this with us. Thank you very much, Ayushi. It's been a pleasure speaking to you. Thank you to everyone who's listening.
00:42:07
Speaker
Folks listening in please do not forget to grab a copy of Timeless Tales from Marwale. You just have to look up excerpts and amazing reviews of the book online to see how much love it's already gathered. Read the book yourself or buy it for your children or nephews or nieces. I would highly recommend that you it's a slim volume. I finished in one
00:42:34
Speaker
But honestly, you can read each story, you can read a story a day if that's something you would enjoy. The books available across Amazon, Flipkart, at independent bookstores near you. Thanks again, Mishes.
00:42:57
Speaker
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