In all, there are thirteen stories of animals, people, bees, birds, thieves and disappearing words, some realistic as well as some imaginative. Most of the stories are brief and crisp, dealing with amusing topics—all quaint, intrinsically funny, fantastic and elementary.
This being said, we need to think of translation differently from the dominant western paradigms, which are steeped in the grammar of “target language”, “source language”, and “fidelity”. In the multilingual, multicultural, and multiethnic milieu of India, where every individual speaks more than one language, we need to think of translation and the publishing and reviewing of translation beyond the readily available vocabulary of ethno-nationalism. In addition, there is a need to recognize translation as rooted in its moment of production, encapsulating characteristics symptomatic of history wherein, in Walter Benjamin’s words, “past comes in constellation with the present”.’
Vasudevahindi also contains the story of the Ramayana, nestled in a chapter called ‘Madanavega Lamba’, narrated by someone called Dadhimukha who in the Valmiki Ramayana, is a minor monkey whose only role is telling Rama and Sugriva that the monkeys who are returning from the south must have been successful because drunk on honey, they have just destroyed the grove which was under his protection.
Chapter 1 provides the much-needed historical overview and discusses the contribution of lesser-known pioneers in this domain. While it is a critical commonplace to posit Hindi Dalit Writings as a post-Mandal phenomenon, Zafir traces, in a historical overview, Dayanand Batohi’s short stories, pre-dating them to even Satish’s ‘Vachan Baddh’, published in 1975 (hitherto believed to be the first Dalit short story in Hindi).
The book encapsulates the vision of a man whose faith in the spirit of oneness guided all his actions. It was his motherland that mattered to him. He was convinced that religious animosity and distrust must go, and caste barriers should be annihilated. Part one, ‘Self Portrait’, is a vivid account of Bismil’s childhood, life at home with his parents, adolescent years and the influence of his Gurudev Swami Somdevji. He also writes about his relationship with his mother. She was a constant source of encouragement to him.
The novella also situates the miners’ struggles within the volatile identity politics of the region. Parallel to the strike, political agitation in distant Shillong against ‘infiltrators’ portrays the labourers’ demands for safety as an existential threat to the rights of indigenous tribals. The workers who are already marked as outsiders, become scapegoats for broader anxieties over demographic change.