Writer and translator Catherine Thankamma launches her first short story collection, A Kind of Meat and Other Stories

Catherine Thankamma calls herself the accidental translator, who stumbled into it when she translated a couple of NS Madhavan’s Malayalam short stories for The Little Magazine published by Antara Dev Sen. Madhavan was a friend of her husband’s friend, cartoonist EP Unny. She was based in Delhi at the time. For the next seven-odd years, from 1995 to 2002, she translated a few more of Madhavan’s short stories. The comment pops up as she talks about her first anthology of short stories, A Kind of Meat and Other Stories, published by Aleph.

Even as she came to be known as a translator of Malayalam works into English such as Narayan’s Kocharethi, Aliyah: The Last Jew in the Village by Sethu, Paul Chirakkarode’s Pulayathara, and Ajay P Mangattu’s Susanna’s Granthapura, she had been writing short stories. Kocharethi won the Crossword Book Award in the Indian language translation category (2011). Her translation of MR Renukumar’s Ayyankali: A Biography is scheduled to be published next year.

“I have been writing for the past 30-odd years, I did not have the time to write a novel but I have written over 40 short stories over the years. But, of course, these have to be sent to somebody for them to be published,” she states.  

And over the years some of these have been rewritten, the endings changed in keeping with the changing times. Also, she adds, that she delayed publishing the anthology because the stories, when she had written them, “were very different and very conventional. The nun in ‘Blood Sacrifice’ dies by suicide in the original, it was written in 1997. In 2024, I thought why should she? Because she has raped? That does not make her a victim, instead she is the victim of a social order that allows such things to happen.”  

Some stories, part of this anthology, like ‘Blood Sacrifice’ and ‘Madhu’ were published earlier, in other literary magazines. Catherine, who retired as an associate professor of English, has taught in government colleges across Kerala, and at Jesus and Mary College, Delhi. Knowing Malayalam is therefore important. Catherine says, “I learnt Malayalam in the first 10  years of my life as a teacher in North Kerala. It was practical learning, I tried to find out the meanings of the unfamiliar words I came across. Like all students of literature, I like all literature.” 

Short story as a medium

Doing a deep dive into A Kind of Meat and Other Stories, Catherine starts with why she chose the short story as a medium. “I prefer short stories for their focus-driven brevity that makes it ideal to structure the narrative around fleeting incidents, chance encounters where you can structure the narrative focussing on characters. The repercussions of the actions of the characters cause ripples which affect the lives of the others.”

Women lie at the heart of the 20 stories that make up the anthology. Be it Eli cheduthi of ‘A Family Affair’, Radha Rukmini of ‘Standpoint’, ‘Polling Day at Nenmara’s’ Alli, Uma of ‘Tara’ or Sister Anne of ‘Blood Sacrifice’…these are not ordinary women and the happily ever afters are few, like in life. Also showcased is how women bond with each other. 

“The stories are women-centric, celebrating womanhood. Happy endings are not guaranteed, but how they react to the curveballs life throws at them is what matters. Their resilience, and how they confront their struggles is celebrated in these stories! Like how Sister Anne informs Dr. Malhotra (in ‘Blood Sacrifice’) of her willingness to register a complaint about her rape. She asks ‘why delay it?’… That is the resilience I want to portray.” 

The themes pivot othering, she reveals. “There are various kinds of othering which is based on prejudice or born out of a sense of privilege, like in stories such as ‘A Kind of Meat’, ‘Polling Day at Nenmara’, ‘Devayani’, ‘Madhu’ and ‘Ellunda’.” 

We see in these stories various kinds of biases — based on diet, age-old casteism and class-based. The stories resonate because we, at some point in our lives, would have had these thoughts. The introspection it forces is discomfiting for, chances are, we will see ourselves in some of the protagonists. 

Toxic family structures

Toxic family structures are another recurring theme, patriarchy and its many manifestations find a telling including the one where, in Catherine’s words, “toxic family structures where relationships are transactional like in ‘Upma for Breakfast’, where there is othering also; of the child. These shatter family structures.” 

Patriarchy sometimes ties in with some of these themes. “It manipulates women to be its staunchest and fiercest advocates. In ‘Standpoint’, Radha Rukmini is ‘judged’ by women who think she is not a ‘good’ person because she is sleeping in a compartment of a parked train. There are all those comments about her ‘virtue’ and the dynamic changes when she pulls out papers with the seal of a university which reveals that she, in fact, teaches at a college. At that point they don’t know how to react.”

Another important theme which reveals itself is how the country has changed over the past three decades. “The political changes that have ripped the social fabric of the country, that shows in ‘Burqa’ where two close friends who shared a strong bond are not even friends, one ignores the other. The strongest, closest relationship is fractured…” 

The seeds of her stories are from what she has observed around her — of society, individuals and societal constructs. “My subconscious notices things and people. Ideas for the stories come from these silent dramas that take place all around. I jot down these ideas as they come when I am doing chores or other work.” 

There is ‘Manufactured Destiny’, about the coaching institute phenomenon of putting children in these so they get admission into colleges that would ‘make’ them doctors or engineers. The conclusion resonates because, every entrance exam season, we hear or read of several such cases. Another story from the collection, ‘Tara’, about a child on the autism spectrum, is especially nuanced in how it is told. Nobody is ‘suffering’ or is a martyr because of it, they take steps to move forward.  

‘Pieta’, inspired by the Pieta on the outskirts of Kottayam, is a dig at the hypocrisy of people for whom going to the church is an occasion to show off. Pieta is an artistic depiction of the Virgin Mary cradling Jesus Christ after his crucifixion, considered one of the evocative forms of Christian imagery, it means ‘the mercy’ or ‘the pity’ in Italian. 

“I wanted to show the Virgin Mary as an ordinary woman who cannot understand her son. I wanted to show the story of Christ through the eyes of his mother.” Then there is ‘Ellunda’, about how the caste system works in Christianity. 

From translation to writing

When a translator turns writer, one expects them to feel a certain sense of freedom, not being restrained by the original text. “It is freeing as a creator without the ‘burden’ of being loyal to the text. As a translator you are also birthing the book, something like surrogate motherhood.”

Even if the translator’s imagination does not do the writer’s ‘job’, Catherine speaks of being sensitive to the original text. “It is the most important factor, and knowledge of both languages too in order to be able to understand the nuances of either language.” Incidentally, she wrote ‘My Death’, from the anthology, in Malayalam.  

“The translator undergoes every pain as the writer, who can use their imagination while we bear the burden of loyalty to the original. Translation is easy but writing is therapeutic and empowering!”  

A Kind of Meat and Other Stories published by Aleph, ₹699