AKKU

critical review-

One of the main missions of Vaidehi, among the most compelling Kannada women writers of our times is the retrieval of the woman's voice from the past.

her stories mostly capture the woman's real world, her real experiences, and the various aspects of self-fashioning, without taking overt, ideological stances. Vaidehi is one of the most unusual voices we have in Kannada today, who also opened up a new worldview with a refreshingly new spoken language. Even in being strongly rooted — in a specific geographical location with a distinct language dialect — Vaidehi's stories achieve a pan-Indian sweep.

women agaisnst opression-

From women being passive narrators of stories, women now tell stories that emerge from their lived life experiences and memories. As Vaidehi herself puts it, there was a clear demarcation between the outside world; with its loud, authoritative voices (the Chavadi and beyond), and the inside world; entrenched in its poignant, disquieting silences (the kitchen, the backyard and a little more). Most of Vaidehi's narratives are invariably set against the backdrop of these two distinct worlds — the outer realm with its imposing voice and the inner realm shut into a silence. The tension in negotiating these two worlds, often perceived as infringement, seen as protest by the patriarchal order, make for the plot of most Vaidehi's stories. Vaidehi's women are almost always a product of their situation, hence their negotiations are unstated. Akku from her collection Antarangada Putagalu is one of Vaidehi's most haunting story. It is the story of Akku, a zany middle-aged woman, who takes on the world in her state of madness. Akku's good-for-nothing husband suddenly disappears, and Akku goes around imagining she's pregnant. Vaidehi's akku, the "dark double" gives a hearing to her simmering anxiety and rage.