Transverse

VLC Bay Area Meeting Minutes – March, 2026

The Bay Area chapter of Vishnupuram Literary Circle met for our 16th monthly meeting today at Fremont Public Library. Considering the upcoming Tamil Literary Festival in NYC in April, we’ve decided to pick a short story from many of the authors who’ll be visiting the event. Padmanabha kicked off with Suneel Krishnan’s Ambu Padukkai. This…
Dialogue as Craft in Jeyamohan’s ‘Poonai’

Of the short stories I’ve read by contemporary Tamil short story writers, it feels like many of them choose themes that lend themselves well to the compressed form. They construct situations of moral weight, place characters under pressure, and let plot and action carry the reader forward. The results are quite effective, sometimes even moving.…
On Azhagunila’s ‘Exclusion’ (விலக்கு)

Azhagunila’s short story விலக்கு spends a day with thirteen-year-old Lavanya, foregrounding her isolation at home and at school because she has not yet gotten her first period. The pressure she feels is largely implicit: classmates casually discuss sanitary pads and boyfriends, while those who have not menstruated are dismissed as “babies,” abruptly stripped of the…
Ra.Giridharan’s ‘There Are No Stories In This Land’

This is my translation of Tamil writer Ra.Giridharan’s இந்த நிலத்தில் கதைகள் எதுவும் கிடையாது. This story is a piece of speculative fiction that blends environmental science with a deeply human yearning for authenticity. It is a cautionary tale about a future where “perfect” technology might solve our resource problems, but at the cost of our connection…
Su.Venugopal’s ‘What Could Be Said’

This is my translation of Tamil writer Su.Venugopal’s short story சொல்ல முடிந்தது. This story is an exploration of guilt, the complexity of mother-son relationships, and the long-term emotional toll of public shame. Many thanks to friends Sarathy Venkatraman and Shankar Pratap for reviewing my draft. Here’s my review of this short story. *** It was…
Thoughts On Vijay Rengarajan’s ‘Inner Fear’ (உள்ளச்சம்)

உள்ளச்சம் tackles the terrain of queer visibility in contemporary urban India with nuance, exploring how even seemingly progressive spaces can harbor deep-seated expectations of invisibility. The central tension between Murali and Arjun, a gay couple, between their desire for authentic public existence and their community’s demand for discretionary silence captures a painful reality that many…
On La.Sa.Ra’s Short Stories பாற்கடல், புற்று & பச்சைக்கனவு

பாற்கடல் gradually and delicately unveils the offerings of a supportive family through the intimate lens of a young wife’s letter to her husband. Set within a joint family, the narrative begins as the husband is compelled to depart on an official trip on the very eve of Deepavali, leaving his new wife sad and mad.…
Thoughts On Vijay Rengarajan’s ‘Sight-Sound’ (ஒளிரொலி)

நடைமேடையில் சுருண்டு படுத்திருக்கும் நாயை, தன் தாடையால் சுட்டினான். “அது சிகப்ப பாக்காது, நம்மைப் போல இசைய கேக்காது. ஆனா நம்ம உலகத்துலதான் அதுவும் இருக்கு.” Is a dog’s life any poorer than a human life just because it can’t perceive what a ‘normal’ human can? Ed Yong’s work in An Immense World explores this question. Yong reminds us that there is…
Su.Venugopal’s ‘What Could Be Said’ (சொல்ல முடிந்தது) – Short Story Review

Su. Venugopal’s சொல்ல முடிந்தது opens with a man on his deathbed and ends with a request for permission to mourn that death. Between these two moments lie thirty-five years of silence – and within that silence, a slow, unexamined moral failure. Raguram is forty-nine. He has worked at the same mill for decades, married, raised…
Chandra Thangaraj’s ‘The Loneliness that Entered the Room’ (அறையில் புகுந்த தனிமை) – Short Story Review

In Chandra Thangaraj’s அறையில் புகுந்த தனிமை, the silence of a 2011 Chennai afternoon is not merely a mood; it is an active, predatory force. For the twenty-seven-year-old unnamed female protagonist, depression is portrayed not as a clinical list of symptoms, but as an urban claustrophobia so dense it renders the world in terrifying shades of…