Issue 2: The Editors Speak
The editors of Mahogany Journal, Jaryl George Solomon and Prasanthi Ram, share their thoughts before the release of the second issue, Retellings.
Credits for artwork: @lazylionco (Instagram)
These stories we (re)tell
The very essence of our human connection lies in storytelling. Before you and me, our ancestors sat around the amber glow of flames, reciting narratives that spanned across the heroic and the supernatural. Their tales tried to make sense of their world–explaining phenomena as furious gods striking each other down in the distant skies above, warning children of disembodied cackles that pierce the twilight sky, celebrating the prowess of the human spirit over seemingly insurmountable hurdles. Even in the present, we tell stories over and over again (some might say, in an endless loop) hoping to glean new meaning from supposedly stale characters or plots that might not necessarily sit well with today’s audiences.
Contemporary readers would have come across many versions of a singular story, till the point where its origin becomes murky and even indistinguishable. Currently, there are more than 300 iterations of Snow White alone, retold in multitudes. Yet, that has not stopped writers from pursuing their own versions of such familiar narratives. Why do we then keep returning to these tales that have taken root in our consciousness and culture, time and time again? Perhaps, the impetus lies in updating these stories for a modern audience? Or maybe, reframing such stories allow certain absent perspectives to come back from erasure? At the heart of it all, retelling folklores, legends and myths might allow us to gain epiphanies about ourselves.
That was how I felt as I perused the six selected poems for this issue. Each of them sought a way to position the personal amidst the vastness of the worlds originally created for these retold stories. In Tessa Kaur’s “Kesh”, the age-old tale of Rapunzel is spun into an exploration of the disconnection and chasm that can exist between one and her culture. In “Love Lores” by Kiran Kaur Dhaliwal, illustrious Punjabi tragic romances remind us that nothing really has changed in the acts of contemporary courtship, the rituals we partake in to find some semblance of love is still equally tragic, if not more. With Akash Mattupalli’s “Ganesh Chaturthi”, a familiar Hindu custom becomes the setting for one to see the overlaps between his life and the god he worships. In a similar vein, S Shivaane unearths the parallels between a South Asian woman and the heroism that Kannagi embodies in her piece, “How many Kannagis must burn?”. Befitting a Halloween release date, Sarah Farheenshah Begum’s piece“Witch to-be” questions the warnings women receive regarding a popular but fabled long-haired spiritual entity. Finally, in Pratyusha Mukherjee’s “Red”, we see how folklores, legends and myths can intertwine into a reading experience that embodies how stories function intertextually these days.
Though daunting at first, I have come to appreciate the editing task I had to take on for this issue. It has opened my eyes to the many approaches our poets have adopted in reframing these classic narratives to fit the objective of this journal, being a showcase of +65 South Asian literary voices. In fact, that was the springboard I needed to plunge into my own retelling of a popular Southeast Asian legend as I borrowed elements from a ghostly tale to make sense of my own issues with my body. I am sure many of you know this by now, but there is a special kind of catharsis that one experiences when they are brave enough to confront what burdens them through the written word. It just so happens that my horror inclinations assisted me with that.
At the end of it all, as you find yourself reading our second issue amidst a much different kind of glow, you will come to appreciate the basal need for us writers to keep telling and retelling stories. Though often perceived as an endless loop, I hope the pieces we have selected challenge you to rethink the nature of such narratives. I would like to see our storytelling traditions akin to an ouroboros, we tell and retell stories to preserve them, in some form of continuity with hopes that these stories can endure and even outlast us. For now and forever, even when you and I are long gone, these stories we (re)tell will remain.
With gratitude and hope,
Jaryl
Our Anchors, Our Home
The year trails on, besmirched by a continued sense of uncertainty and grief. If we are all boats at sea, then this pandemic has stolen our anchors. It is too easy to feel stranded in today's world; it is as if we have been forsaken and some deity above is simply waiting for clearance to re-run this experiment gone wrong (yes, I am convinced we are in The Bad Place). I too have struggled this year in the tempestuous ocean of life, which is why it is an immense relief to be able to return to the safe space that is Mahogany. Even if it is just our second issue, Mahogany feels like home, where I am nourished and I get to nourish. What a privilege it is, to belong to a place that waits patiently for you to return from finding your footing out in the world.
For this issue, we narrow in on the tales that have anchored cultures and peoples with a sense of meaning. Together, we contemplate how they, and the messages contained within them, can be retold for our contemporary +65 South Asian context. Out of the nine selected works, three are short stories.
With Anittha Thanabalan's "The House of Wind", we have a refashioned children's folktale, set in the recognisably Singaporean wet market, that explores the relationship between status and shame, as well as deserving and greed. Then we have Gayatri Balasubramanian's "The Conundrum of Ardhanarishvar", which foregrounds the inherent queerness of Hindu mythology in a heartrending story about a strained mother-child relationship and their shared love for the androgynous Ardhanarishvar. Lastly, we have Shanthini Selvarajan's "Kelly" that takes on the horror genre, except that the horror in question is none other than self-obsessed male misogynists one meets through dating apps (Goddess Kali would probably agree with Kelly).
Given the intertextuality of these works, I thoroughly enjoyed the editing process because there was simply so much to learn and reconsider. Every folktale, legend and myth naturally comes with its own identifiers and nuances. It was therefore thrilling to observe how each writer reconceptualised those particularities in their own styles and narrativised them with messages that are both familiar and relevant to our community today. Even when working on my own creative response, I found myself fixating on the helplessness of human beings in the face of divine powers, which led me to question why the seeming ruthlessness of godly figures has often been downplayed, even normalised in several myths. I was curious to find out what it would take for the ruthlessness to finally be seen as problematic. The answer then came to me in the form of a hypothetical question: “What if a similar narrative unfolded during a worldwide pandemic?” Indeed, the overall experience of putting together Retellings has made me realise that South Asianness is a boundless continuum that can benefit greatly from such retellings–in fact, it demands to be renewed and replenished along with shifting times.
This issue too is a gift from us to you. If even a single word or phrase from the following pages feeds your imagination and anchors you better in this volatile world, we will consider it the greatest compliment. And to our +65 South Asian readers, welcome home.
Sending love and light,
Prasanthi