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 (3rd 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.
Interestingly, of all the posts I have read on Ammachi so far, yours is the only one that actually talks about the rape incident. One person talks of it as just a beating (I am not sure if he could not even imagine what else it could be, or was just hesitant to name it a rape), and the others seem to ignore this incident altogether (which, quite frankly, I think is a pivotal event). I wonder if your discussions also went like that, with people hesitating to use the 'r' word!
ReplyDeleteVery well explained.. have covered all the minute aspects and incidence in the story.
ReplyDelete