Review of That’s a Fire Ant Right There, stories by Telugu writer Mohammed Khadeer Babu

Muslim children reluctant to learn Urdu, a mother resisting Ramzan fasts, a Hindu vouching for the “24-carat gold” character of his Muslim friend for a marriage proposal — Telugu writer Mohammed Khadeer Babu busts several myths in his collection of stories, That’s a Fire Ant Right There, translated into English by D.V. Subhashri.

The narrator is a young boy, much like the protagonist of R.K. Narayan’s Swami and Friends, and he brings 50 stories of everyday life from his village in coastal Andhra Pradesh, speaking in his Nellore dialect. The translator leaves many of the original words, and the ebbs and flows of the local tongue, enhancing the reading.

An astute observer, the narrator’s look-back at his childhood is replete with canny scrutiny of the school system, where there is a clear division between the ‘Clevers’ and the rest, who get a “solid thrashing” for their low scores, customs and rituals, social barriers, patriarchy and the stranglehold of caste.

These tales from Kavali come bearing the anecdotal history of the place. We are told, for instance, how it got its name. “Once upon a time this place was inhabited by soldiers guarding the Udayagiri fort. Because they kept vigil here — ‘kavali‘ in Telugu — the place came to be known as ‘Kavali’.”

Painting real life

When the family shifts to another place called Patooru, where 80% of the people are Reddys, the narrator’s father, who is already acquainted with many Reddys, adjusts easily. But his mother and grandmother miss the warmth of their old neighbours. “What sort of sattenashinam hellhole is this Patooramma! Not a person here to even borrow a leaf of coriander to a piece of ginger for curry,” his mother frets.

The pages are filled with descriptions of mouth-watering palavs, semiyas and fried sweets and savouries of all kinds; it also maps the region’s trees (neem, turai) and flowers (sannajaaji jasmine) like Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay does of rural Bengal in Pather Panchali. Through the narrator, readers get a glimpse of the beauty of the place as also its grim poverty.

But, more importantly, it shines a light on a time of communal harmony and friendship between Hindus and Muslims, not only during festivals when food is shared but in day-to-day existence.

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Humour as a tool

The narrator draws the attention of readers to the pirs and dargahs of Nellore district where “there’s no Hindu or Muslim — only faith matters”. People go to these dargahs — he mentions two, Kaleshavali Pir and Hazrat Pir — “when in trouble or out of it”. In our town, he says, “you can find scores of Hindus with names like Mastanreddy, Mastanrao, Mastanayya,” as children believed to be born of the blessings of these pirs are given names like ‘Mastan’, ‘Kalesha’, and so on.

There’s a scorching look at patriarchal mindsets too. When the narrator’s father is awed by the morning sun one day and announces that it’s not a bad idea to wake up early, his mother, who is already into chores from daybreak, retorts: “You don’t need to wake up early, my Lord. It’s enough if you just wake up.”

In interviews, the Pulitzer-winning American writer Percival Everett has said that if one can get someone laughing, then one can use that relaxed state to present other things. Khadeer Babu has done something like that — he has used humour, irony and absurdity to slip in the important social and political concerns of a small coastal village.

That’s a Fire Ant Right There

Mohammed Khadeer Babu, trs D.V. Subhashri

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