ABSTRACT
Disability in literary discourse could be located under two broad frameworks: a. Representation of disability by the non-disabled; b. Self-articulation of the disabled. The chapter takes up a study of two short stories from Tamil, one from each of the two stated categories to explore the different ways of representing disability in literary writings. A critical perspective on issues pertaining to the disabled from the standpoint of activist intervention, critiquing of prevailing social perceptions of disability, efforts at sensitisation at the level of language and aesthetics as reflected in the short stories under consideration form the central argument of the chapter.
Bama’s Ottha, translated as Single foregrounds multiple forms of discrimination like those of gender and caste identities which accentuate the challenges faced by the disabled. Abilash Chandran's Maadippadigal, translated as Steps and Stairs, narrativises the trauma, anxieties of the disabled on issues related to their social intercourse, sexuality and agency.
Translation strategies of mirroring the Other, finding cultural equivalences, modes of appropriation/ defamiliarisation are examined in the context of negotiating disability narratives. It traces representation of disability in Tamil epics, folk arts and in contemporary fiction to forge linkages amongst discourse of pity and of reform on disability in Tamil writings.
