‘Vaadivaasal’: In the jallikattu arena, an emotional story of revenge, honour, and legacy

Translations, to me, have always been one of the most interesting curations in literature. They allow stories to travel across regions and languages and make it possible for readers like me to enter worlds that are not originally our own. At their best, translations feel effortless; I know the distance the text has travelled, but I am not distracted by it. Reading CS Chellappa’s Vaadivaasal, translated from the Tamil by N Kalyan Raman, in English feels like stepping into a new world of jallikattu, a centuries-old traditional bull-taming sport I knew nothing about before reading the novella.

First published in Tamil in 1949, it is considered to be a modern literary classic in Tamil. It was remarkable for the time for two primary reasons – one, it focused on the lives of the subaltern classes, and two, for the first time jallikattu was written about in modern Tamil literature.

Bull and man

Picchi, a young man, has come to the arena with a very specific goal. Years earlier, his father had been killed during a jallikattu contest by a famous and feared bull called Kaari. Since then, the memory of that incident has shaped Picchi’s sense of pride and responsibility. When he arrives at the festival, he is not just hoping...

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