Ammacchi

Adwait Deshpande

Summary

Ammacchi is a retrospective narration that describes the personality of the narrator’s friend and the moments that they shared together. Ammacchi (friend) is a friend who is quite older than the narrator. They share a special bond, which is quite unlike that of friends of similar ages. Ammacchi is a young girl who is at the threshold of adult life. She is a bold girl who is very high-spirited. The narrator finds beauty in her idiosyncrasies and looks up to her. Ammacchi is described as one who defies normative, orthodox ideas and rebels with those who expect her to follow them. The narrator and Ammacchi stay in a small village, which is not very open to such radical behavior. The narrator recounts the events of conflicts between Ammacchi and Venkappayya, who is an orthodox man who has grown up with her and is six years elder to her. Venkappayya is an authoritative man who assumes responsibility over Ammacchi (and her mother) and orders her about every petty thing. Ammacchi is clearly fed up of such totalitarian behavior of Venkappayya. The narrator recalls how they both try to get on each other’s nerves by pulling pranks whenever opportunity presents itself. One such day, Venkappayya looses his temper over a small prank, and in a fit of rage, locks Ammacchi in a room and rapes her. Soon after, the narrator reports, Ammacchi had gotten married to Venkappayya and left with him for another town. A few months later, Ammacchi returns to her village and informs her mother that Venkappayya had hanged himself. While relating this situation, the narrator remembers a hint of a smile that she saw on Ammacchi’s face, when she spoke about Venkappayya’s death.

About the author:

Janaki Srinivas Murthy, known by the pen name Vaidehi is an accomplished kannada writer. She has many popular stories and poems to her name. I found out that in most of the stories that she writes, she represents a conflict, a tension between two worlds. The outer world, of impositions and dominance and the inner world of desires and suppression. This story too, refers to the suppression of the free spirited Ammacchi by Venkappayya. Vaidehi describes her childhood in one of her interviews. She was brought up in a small village in the Kundapur district in Karnataka. She describes her village as deeply immersed in patriarchal norms and infected by casteism. She recounts her memories of being brought up in a house in which the males had an overpowering status and the women had no say in any matter. So much of what Vaidehi says is synchronizes with the plot, setting and characters of the story. It is as if Vaidehi were narrating the story from her own life experiences. Even the positioning of the child narrator in the story seems like a personal choice for the same reason. No wonder, the bold, outspoken and free spirited Ammacchi is portrayed with a very positive bias.

Reflections on the story:

         The story has been written from the (perceived) viewpoint of a pre adolescent child. Some very serious issues, such as patriarchy, rape etc. have been referred to. The combination of both of these elements makes the story a unique experience. To learn about upsetting events through the eyes of a child invoke a lot of thoughts in me as a reader. At the same time, the descriptions of character and events were so realistic, that the reader becomes engaged with the story and the characters. For all these reasons, I was deeply moved by the story.

                     The most stirring part of the story was how the child narrator recalls the most important and disturbing events and describes them. The description is a bare skeleton of facts of the occurrence. But void of details and personal touch in those descriptions have an effect on you. I suddenly found myself filling in that void and being unnerved at the implications that may have on the various characters in the story.

Literary Circle session:

My literary circle interaction didn’t seem as fruitful. Of the seven members, three were absent, and of the remaining four, only two knew the story well. Even though the other two read the story before interaction, they couldn’t finish it or engage with it as deeply. As a result, the interaction became a superficial ‘laying out of ideas’ as expressed by Calkin.

         We discussed slightly different interpretations of the incidents in the story. For instance, we had different ideas of what happens in the end. Being a little annoyed by the character of Vankappayya, I imagined that Ammacchi had taken revenge on murdering him and making it look like a suicide. That is how I perceived the ‘hint of smile’ that she gives towards the end. On the other hand, Saranjit suggested that Vankappayya indeed committed suicide, but it was because he was fed up of Ammacchi’s ways.

         There were no major disagreements within the group, primarily because of loose engagement in the story. The facilitator inspired some discussion by suggesting lines to think about. Such as trying to guess the age of the narrator, and the idea behind having a child narrate such an ‘adult’ story. These questions made us think about the position of the narrator. Initially I had thought that the narrator would be in her early adolescent years, mostly because large part of the story describes how Ammacchi gets ready, and how beautiful she looks – things that an adolescent might focus on. But later, after hearing stronger arguments from my teammates (about her narrating sexual events very innocently and Ammacchi, herself not being very far from adolescence), I changed my opinion.

         The literary circle session indeed made me revisit various aspects of the story that I had earlier ignored. But as we were not very much inspired by the story, I feel that we did not make any major contribution in the discussion.

         Insights about literary discussions:

·      When books/stories are being assigned, the children should get a story that they have chosen themselves (after due thought process).

·      The children need to take ownership of reading the story before coming to the discussion and they should be invested in it

·      Literary discussions can begin from much earlier ages (3^rd grade) but have to be facilitated skillfully. This will create a culture that will help in the further years.

·      Literary discussions should be continuous, as a part of the school routine. They should not be sudden events in the curriculum.

·      Literary discussions have the potential to develop an ability of openly listening to perspectives that are different from your own. If accountable talk is established, then they can really develop children’s ability to participate in debates and arguments of substance.