Vasantha Surya: Writer, Translator, Poet, Journalist

Vasantha Surya’s writing spans more than 50 years.

She has written two books of poetry, with individual poems having been published in different forums. Her first volume of poetry “The Stalk of Time” was shortlisted for the Commonwealth poetry prize in 1985. “A Word between Us” is her second volume of poetry.

She has written more than 300 articles and reviews on social justice, gender and education for major Indian newspapers and magazines, as well as a full-length investigative report on the creation and dismantling of the Method of Science Exhibition for UNESCO’s ICSU (International Council of Scientific Unions).

A translator of Tamil fiction and poetry, she has translated six novels for Macmillan, New Horizons, Katha, Oxford University Press, and Zubaan, as well as several short stories and poems. Some of her translations of poetry and prose are included in “Tamil Dalit Writing” (OUP), Her translations include “Contemporary Tamil Short Fiction” first published by East-West Press has been republished twice as “A Place to Live” by Penguin.

Her more recent translations include:

• An Order from the Sky, Harper Collins India (2023), a collection of short stories by the Sahitya Academy winning Tamil writer, Imayam.
• In “The Greatest Tamil Stories Ever Written,” Aleph Books (2021) she has written an introduction and translated a story.
• “To Plunge Within”, Aleph (2022) is her translattion of 110 quatrains from the Thiruvaimozhi by the eighth century poet Nammaazhwaar, shaped as her poetic narrative.

Among her other translations into English verse is one from Bundeli, “The Ballad of Budhni” , Writers Workshop, a full length verse narrative of a modern Bundelkhand folk poem, “Budhni ki Aalha”

Her published writing for children include several stories, a Children’s Ramayana, and a novel , “Mridu in Madras“, Eklavya Publications, with illustrations by herself and others. This has been translated by Prema Srinivasan and herself into Tamil for Kalachuvadu Publications.

Saree

It came wrapped in desire’s eager rustling
a gift I did not choose.
Though warp and weft obeyed
an ambiguous design, the shade
beguiled.
The texture satisfied
a hunger, not merely of the eye.

 
I shook it loose and shaped it to my use.
Line and colour clung to breast and thigh.
The border’s thread of gold
repeated in each pleat and fold
flashed in the mirrors of others’ eyes.

 
“It’s grand!” they said “Beware the evil eye!”
But one who called herself my friend
warned, “That red will run, and leave you stained!
All blotched you’re going to be, with memory!
It’s flimsy stuff — won’t last you till the end!
Don’t mistake me, but that jari’s fake!
I’m only telling you this for your own sake.”

 
She was right, and wrong.
Though the colour bled, the fabric held.
The texture satisfied
that hunger, not merely of the eye.
The gold proved genuine
silver — a not unacceptable exchange
when time came to trade desire and greed
for plain and simple need.

 
I have stripped the borders and bleached out the stains.
Rich decoration gone, each tantalising line
obliterated, it needs no defense
against  the evil eye. Of design,
promise, and pretense, nothing remains.

 
What’s left is unglossed warp and weft.
A sturdy weave as natural as air.
A seamless second skin
concealing and revealing what I choose
like clouds shaped and reshaped
to the sun’s ever-changing use.

Worn thin, the texture still satisfies
that hunger, not merely of the eye.

 
From  “A Word Between Us”  – Sandhya Publications