In September 2024, Champaca hosted its first ever Reading Retreat in Goa. We stayed in Olaulim for three days, where all we had to do, really, was focus on our books, what we thought of them, how we felt while reading them, and what they made us think about. We had a few goals in mind when we’d first conceptualised the retreat; we wanted to give people a chance to break away from the busy days of their lives, and a place where they could read undisturbed. We had to think quite carefully about the books we chose and what we wanted our participants to reflect on.
How did we pick our books?
Our curator, Thejaswi Shivanand, wanted the retreat to be designed in such a way that it catered to many different styles of reading that the reader may have, with an underlying emphasis and understanding of the fact that each reader’s style, interests and habits were subjective and personal. The book selection had to allow for readers to find their entry points to exploring reading for themselves, for voracious readers and aspiring readers, and returning readers to reluctant readers and respond to a range of reading styles from slow to rapid, short bursts to long stretches, focussed to distracted. These books were meant to provoke questions about their relationships with reading, memories and emotions associated with the act of reading in the past and the present, motivations or blocks they had about reading, what the sensory experience of reading a physical book undisturbed was like, as well as the larger question of how their relationship to reading had changed over time.
“To meet these needs within the theme of Indian Translations, I had to think of books that were not very long, representing a range of writing styles, socio-cultural ideas and experiences, geographies and languages. I also thought the selection could open questions around various facets of the nature of translation and approaches to translating a book,” says Thejaswi, on his process of choosing the books for the retreat.
We had many options for books we thought would be great to read at the retreat. After much deliberation, trimming and substitution, we arrived at the final few that we all read at the retreat! Here’s what Thejaswi had to say about each of the books and why they were chosen.
Sakina's Kiss: a well-known novel by Vivek Shanbagh and translated from Kannada by Srinath Perur. I hoped to open the opportunity of revisiting a book that some participants might already read. For new readers, it could represent a well-knit book reflecting on locational and cultural roots and various movements in life. The book is contemporary and urban, with sub-themes possibly relatable to some readers. Sakina’s Kiss also lent itself to an exploration around the approach to translation where the writer and translator worked closely on the book.
Chittacobra: a short novel by Mridula Garg, who also translated it from Hindi. The book gained much attention in the late 1970s around its directness and frank discussions of women's desires and was even put on trial for its ‘obscene’ content but isn't particularly well-known today with English readers. I hoped some readers would find the frankness disarming and contemporary, while others might struggle with it, lending itself to very interesting discussions with many different viewpoints.
The Aayakudi Murders: a plot-twister, pot-boiler mystery novel in Tamil by Indra Soundar Rajan and translated by Nirmal Rajagopalan that represents pulp fiction, which constitutes a significant percentage of fiction available for the reading public in English and regional languages. This book presents an opportunity to open out questions around the nature of literature, and attitudes to different types of writing.. There is often a heavy divide posited between the literary and the popular, where pulp is looked down upon, which raises possibilities with questions around feelings of secrecy and guilt in enjoying pulp among some readers.
Fence: a Gujarati novel by Ila Arab Mehta and translated by Rita Kothari, it is the story of a young Muslim woman tracing her life from childhood through adulthood in the background of communal tensions as the story frames shift between rural and urban Gujarat. The writing is disarmingly easy while the themes are layered, complex and in several places quite local while also holding universality with respect to women's identity, Majoritarian politics, and the realised meaning of modernity in rural areas. This book opens the space to discuss the nature of storytelling and setting.
Entering the Maze: a collection of two short stories and a novella by Krishnagopal Mallick, selected, translated from Bengali and introduced by Niladri Chatterjee. This book is by a pioneering writer who in the 1960s onwards openly wrote about queer themes, often from an autobiographical lens. Mallick was translated into English only recently. This book could provoke the readers to think and engage with queer lives from a very different perspective that looks at navigating landscapes of cities, and the awakening of sexuality in the context of people with fluid sexual identities. This book had the potential to challenge some readers while engrossing others, opening up windows for response and dialogue.
The Black Magic Women: a collection of nine Assamese short-stories by Moushumi Kandali and translated by Prabina Rashid that have a running theme of perceptions of women, the roles they play in society and dilemmas they face on a daily basis in navigating their lives. These stories are deeply rooted in local culture and tinged with the qualities of fantasy and fable which might offer the reader a chance to be enchanted or pushed by form and context.
In addition to these six books, we included "Funeral For a Demon and other short stories", the first volume of the Deodar Prize Short Stories which was an additional bonus to the participants at the retreat. These stories present a range of attempts of emerging writers tackling the short story form.
The selection of books was the first step in enabling a reading experience, but it did not end there. The retreat became real when we all met at Goa, shared space, books, thoughts and feelings around them. We will share more on the experience soon!