The purpose of this Blog is to provide images for readers of the collection of stories entitled Tales told to the Tooth Goddess by Abhithakuchalambal. Here is the preface to the collection, the contents page will follow. The pages of this Blog correspond to the sections of the book; each story for which images are available will be discussed with the visual information in each case:
Preface
All these tales told to the Tooth Goddess are set within thirty kilometres radius of Arunachala Mountain in Tamil Nadu, South India, fondly known as ‘the hill’ or ‘the holy hillock’. The name of the area designated is Arunachalam – one of India’s most sacred places; my relationship with this place is overwhelmingly the most significant encounter in my life. Section one ‘Mother always has plenty of milk’ encapsulates personal facets of the prism of Arunachalum’s influence throughout the world although essentially one can only indicate the inexpressible.
All of these stories contain some autobiographical components. Most can accurately be categorised as Non Fiction since they aim at faithful reportage of the writer’s perception of real events, yet section five contains three fictional stories containing biographical components observed in the lives of various local women friends.
Many of the stories reveal what impoverishment means; many articulate the difficulties encountered by dis-empowered persons in the backwoods. On the other hand, there is a vibrancy imbuing the lives of all residents here which irrepressibly shines through these words; ‘culture’ is a slippery sort of notion, nevertheless it’s the best available in English to describe what exactly it is that is so startlingly vibrant.
My place within the community surrounding Arunachala came to be coloured green, a process both arduous and meaningful. However a large number of the stories relating to reforestation that survived my transmigration back to Australia in 2004 contained an essential ingredient that rendered them so not funny as to be hilarious, indeed, too many. When it came to compiling the collection, therefore, I discarded all those dealing with corruption; from the Indian perspective it appears important to spill the beans, but when regarded from other shores the subject – however colourful and humorous, is indecent and boring. The stories in Section three cover the greening process from several other viewpoints and any reader who remains curious about this work is invited to visit the website for the Arunachala Kattu Siva Plantation.
‘Swansong for an old forest’ stands as my epilogue simply because that’s the note on which I chose to close this collection.
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Contents
Preface
I. Setting the scene:
Introduction
1. Revelation at the bottom of an old tank
2. Arunachala
3. The moral of the monks
4. Hari!
5. Mother always has plenty of milk.
II. Highlights – festivals, rituals, rites:
Introduction
6. Dawn walks on pilgrim path
7. Putting the gods to bed
8. Deepam – festival of Light
9. Bhai’s place
10. Showdown between the divinities
11. Equal in the eyes of god
12. The swamy
13. One way to settle disputes
III. Back to basics – greening:
Introduction
14. Women and water
15. Forest meeting with the Conservator
16. Secret women’s business
17. Meetings in the big smoke
18. Annamalai Tamasha
IV. Vibrant diversity – culture:
Introduction
19. Breakfast in the shade
20. On not speaking the language
21. The installation of Nandi No-ears
22. Our local loonies
23. Local colour: orange
24. Barbed Wire
25. The ideal bank
26. All in a Dalit’s days work
27. The royal family
V. Tales told to the Tooth Goddess:
Introduction
28. One survivor in a sordid system
29. Mu’s story
30. The beginnings of love
VI. Epilogue:
31. Swansong for an old forest
Glossary
Word count: 100,000
