The Home Page of Padma Viswanathan

Pysanky

•The Walrus (forthcoming 2010)

The hair salon was close to the bus stop — there was little reason for Arjun to be looking in the window otherwise. Most of the women who worked there were Korean, though at first he thought they were Chinese, since this was a couple of blocks from Chinatown. The pictures on the walls were mostly small and mostly about the hair cuts, half with white models, half with Asian, including some he thought might be Korean pop stars. One station, though, tended to draw his attention, plastered as it was with old Edmonton Opera posters...

The Wild Unknown Country

•Her Mother's Ashes 3 (TSAR Publications 2009)

Shankaran steps out of his car, angling forward against the slope of the driveway. Greying snow inches up the garage walls. For a second, as he approaches, he can’t tell if he hears Nalini’s violin or if desire is shaping his perceptions again. In the next instant, he does hear it, not the song he imagined, but another: Oh, sister, when I come to knock on your door, Don't turn away, you'll create sorrow...

The Postino's Familiar

•The Malahat Review (Winter 2007/2008)

Each morning between nine and ten-after, my doorbell rings, as do, unheard by me, all the other doorbells in the building. I leap to and press my intercom button: “Pronto?”

Sometimes I am fast or close enough to hear, “Postino!” as though shouted from the floor of a bottle, but more often it’s the unlocking buzz of one of my co-residents, quicker on the draw. Our postino instantly cries, fury now apparent in his strangulated voice, “Aperto! Aperto!”...

Transitory Cities

•Boston Review (May/June 2007)
•Winner of their 14th Annual Story Contest
•George Saunders, judge

(How did he come to bear others’ homes on his back?)

That question can only be answered by the one holding the strings ascending from Hram’s pivotal points, as from the joints of every bearer...

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Naïve Art

•Subtropics (Winter/Spring 2007)

For the first while, it seemed Maryen had hit, finally, on the perfect job. All she had to do was remain still, which had never been a problem: a raft of skittering daydreams often rendered her motionless—a source of frustration to many past employers and professors. Now, as an artist’s model, it could be her bread and butter. She was only working four hours a week at present, but thought it a promising start. After a little more than a month, however, Maryen realized she was attracted to the painter, and this interest made her aware of inconvenient itches, and intense, unprecedented bodily pains...

Dharnakarna

•New Letters (2007)

A new bride is coming to the brahmin quarter – all of Cholapatti hears that she is coming. A nadaswaram's wail signals her arrival, over the wheels of a bullock cart. As if for a surprise salute, people on their verandahs rise. Housewives hurry from kitchens; their husbands come, too, nonchalantly – each and every one with a crochet lace brow. How can it be they didn’t know they were to welcome a new bride?

In a moment, they are each twice-nodding: once for knowing, once more for disapproval...

The Barber Lover

•Agni Online (2006)

Some unwelcome but not unexpected information reaches Muchami via his regular channels. He put word out, a week or ten days earlier, requesting this information, after having seen something that didn’t quite look right...

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In the Karnatak Country

•Prism International (1998)

"Pack your bags. We are leaving. No objections, children, you will not insist any longer on living in this house. Time and again I have told you to come and take your place with us, with your parents! But it is always Broom Uncle this, Grandmother that. No more! This time I will not take no for an answer."

Goli flies around the room. He is shoving each child in the direction of his or her packing...

last modified 25-feb-10

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