One Thousand Days in a Refrigerator

by Manoj Kumar Panda

It took nearly five minutes for her ashes to cool down. Afterwards, someone held out a handful. “Here she is, your Lara. Take her.” The agony stuck within me like an iceberg for one thousand days shattered without warning and drowned me in a flood of tears.

A man sits before his wife lying comatose in a refrigerated chamber and tells her the thoughts he had never dared express when she was conscious; ‘When the Gods Left’ follows Rajula Dip, a carrion-picker, as he goes about his business and himself becomes carrion; in ‘Fragments’, a woman takes a bus to her rapist’s house to speak to him and to his family; God himself appears in court to give testimony in a case where justice has been miscarried; and in ‘The Hunt’, after a tiger kills a shepherd, the entire village turns on the victim’s family in revenge.
'One Thousand Days in a Refrigerator' includes fourteen stories of great power and beauty, startling in their variety and ambition. It showcases a writer at the very peak of his considerable abilities.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, India, Indian Literature

224 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2016

Reviews

[Reading_ Tamishly · Rating 4 out of 5]

"She drank the venom of all aspersions and swallowed a flood of silent tears with stoic resignation."

*Short stories
*Historical fiction, contemporary

The writing is really good and the translation pretty awesome.

*Contents:

1. When the Gods Left
5 🌟
*Untouchability/caste discrimination, old age dilemma

2. Kaniska
4 🌟
*Disability, coming of age

3. A Letter from Mesopotamia
4 🌟
*Domestic abuse, gambling obsession, family drama, substance abuse

4. Filling in the Blanks
4 🌟
*Slavery, sexual abuse of a minor

5. The Hunt
3🌟
*Tiger hunt dilemma due to loss of an innocent life and how men take advantage of the situation
*Warnings for gory descriptions

(I just don't like the concept of cruelty towards animals. It's sad to say it was considered a matter of pride to hunt until a few years back. This is a different matter though. But I still feel it's because of lack of proper laws and precautions, not the fault of the predators that we must hunt and kill these animals when they commit such acts.)

6. The Aesthetics of a Supercyclone
4 🌟
*After effects of a disaster, death of family members
*Rather intense and quite unpredictable
*Warning for provoking scenes, gun violence

7. The Testimony of God
5 🌟
*Death of a child and the dilemma of false accusations
*So well-written and the translation is so good

8. The Dreamer's Tale
4 🌟
*A story in a conscious dream
*Elements of magical realism and a take on godmen
*Our beliefs vs our thoughts vs what's real

9. One Thousand Days in a Refrigerator
4 🌟
*Deals with coma/vegetative state of a character
*Possible discussion on euthanasia, abortion, workplace politics,

10. Pronunciation Therapy
4 🌟
*Miscommunication dilemma
*Being a doctor is miserable at times
*Being a patient is even more miserable
*Beliefs/superstitions vs medical practices

11. A Picture of Agony
3🌟
*Talk about the rising temperature turning into a killer

12. Sentenced to a Honeymoon
5🌟
*Talking about the mysterious disappearance of our eccentric main character
*Discussion on domestic life in a marriage
*What a writer feels
*Well put arguments

13. Fragments
4 🌟
*Story about a rape victim
*How such incidents affect the victim's life as well as the criminal's

14. The Alphabet Garden
4 🌟
*This one is pretty graphic

[Nidhi Mahajan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book review was originally written for Scroll.in and has been published on their website here.

Even in the twenty-first century, these are stories of raw human nature

Snehaprava Das, the translator of Manoj Kumar Panda’s short story collection One Thousand Days in a Refrigerator, considers the translator’s role comparable to that of an artist. For, like a musician or an actor, a translator, too, interprets a work of art. One Thousand Days, then, is a collaboration between Panda’s profound meditations on human existence and Das’s interpretation.

Translated from Odia into English, the fourteen stories in the collection explore the plight of human beings, especially those on the margins, in a social system that justifies oppression based on the absurd hierarchies of class, caste, and gender. The contemporary relevance of these stories, therefore, cannot be understated.

Human nature, explained
The story titled “Kaniska” explores the bond between a physically disabled baby and a young baby-sitter brought to take care of him; the two characters become important pieces in each other’s lives. The story describes a fundamental quality inherent and intuitive in human nature. Panda writes:

“It is an ancient habit of man to fill up empty spaces; he has always been preoccupied with filling up empty wombs and empty tombs.”

The story “Filling in the Blanks” expands further on this, recognising that human beings fall short in the process of filling the blank spaces in their lives, and yet continue to play this game “without scruple, without shame”.

In the title story, a husband reflects on his married life as he decides to take his ailing wife off life-support; he highlights another aspect of human nature, the eagerness to play god. He says:

“Poor human being. How desperate to approach immortality…How ridiculously eager to play the role of god. Yet without power. And inescapably trapped by his own limitations.”

Why we are what we are
The stories place theses aspects of human nature within the perimeter of a social system that makes humans what they are. It is this system that constructs hierarchies and prescribes norms that trap people in a web of superstition, economic hardships, alienation, and despair.

The story “When the Gods Left” depicts this effectively. It presents the predicament of a man belonging to (what is deemed as) a “low” and “untouchable” caste. He carries the carcasses of animals and human beings and disposes of them. Speaking to his dead wife, he says:

“My old wife, you know we are untouchables. Our mortal remains will not find their way to the Ganga or the Godavari. They will go into the gutter…I will follow you soon and we will resume our jobs. You will sweep away dirt…and I will get rid of carcasses.”

The story provides an ironic commentary on the norms of the so-called “upper” Brahmin castes. It describes how a cow is brought home with many rituals and is seen as holy, but as soon as it dies, the many gods that resided in her body seem to leave instantly for heaven.

In the Translator’s Note to the collection, Das writes that Panda’s stories present “a melancholic picture of man on an ever-expanding canvas of pain and despair…as he is pitted against a system that is destined to wipe out his very existence.”

The final story in the collection, “The Alphabet Garden”, poetically describes the conceiving of a child in the womb. What begins as a hopeful beating of the heart ends with violation of dignity and death. The parting words of the story are “You are shanti, shanti, shanti”, which remind one of the last line of TS Eliot’s The Wasteland.

There is hope still
In the face of the existential crisis experienced by the characters in the stories, the collection also presents a faint but consistent sense of hope. The characters are connected through their dreams. The motif is introduced in the story “When the Gods Left”, where the protagonist is described as having two passions: sleeping and dreaming. The bond between him and his wife is described in these words:

“They smiled at each other’s dreams, at each other’s speech and silences.”

The motif is central to the story “The Dreamer’s Tale” where the protagonist conjures up a red horse in his dream and pursues the desire to own it in reality. A note of caution is rung in the tale as Panda distinguishes between pursuing one’s dreams and pursuing illusions; the latter, as the story depicts, can only lead to despair.

One Thousand Days is a collection of sometimes realist, sometimes bizarre, and always eclectic stories that depict human nature at its rawest, exploring the causes of crises in people’s lives, and offering a little hope here and there in the face of despair.

[Areeb Ahmad (Bankrupt_Bookworm) · Rating 3 out of 5]

"With the setting of the sun, her life would cease to be a game. The world of dreams would recede and the harsh realities of life would come rushing in, as if they had been waiting eagerly in the wings all along. With dusk would float in the images of the scaffold, the burning pyre and of life groaning upon them."

I have had this book for close to two years now so I thought it was high time I finally read it. I have not read Odia books in translation before and it is my third in only a month, the other two being Battles of Our Own and Six and a Third Acres. I largely appreciated the collection, even though it was somewhat uneven and did not deliver on all my expectations. Many of these stories deal with serious themes such as abuse, rape, caste discrimination, and poverty. There are a couple of light-hearted ones as well that employ humour, therefore a welcome change of pace and tone.

For translator Snehaprava Das, Manoj Kumar Panda's stories "skillfully wield the themes of existentialism, isolation and the predicament of man living in alienation in a hostile world." She highlights Panda's consistent use of mild sarcasm mixed with pathos as well as bleak humour to give levity. She also singles out his innovative employment of language and the difficulty of replicating it in English. Too often, the stories fizzle out before they can establish their significance. Still, it is a fascinating view of social realism in Indian literature.



(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

[Anurati · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5
An eccentric collection of stories ranging from a victim going over to talk to her rapist, the story of an untouchable who disposes off dead bodies, a man's conversation with his comatose wife and so on. Especially liked the title story, When The Gods Left, Fragments and Alphabet Garden. The plot and premise of each story was intriguing but the end always left me feeling incomplete, as if I lost a whole chunk of the story in translation. The book deserves much better writing as the prose seems to be crushed under an excessive use of adverbs and adjectives.

The book made me realise that we are all missing out on some great regional writers who are writing riveting material in the "vernacular" language.

[Kakoli · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

The stories are thought provoking and unsettling. The translator has done a great work in this translation. It was not an easy read.
I suggest one go through the Translators note at the end first. This will give a rough insight to Pandya's writing style.

[Sandeep · Rating 4 out of 5]

Odisha one of India's lesser known eastern states, has many great literary personalities. This attempt at translating Manoj Panda's short stories is a landmark. Kudos to the Speaking Tiger publications for doing the readers a big favor.

The stories are fresh and someone like myself who hails from the state, it always is a real pleasure to reconnect. For me some stories stood out specially " The hunt" , "When the God's left","Aesthetics of a super cyclone", "One thousand days in a refrigerator" and "The testimony of god" stood out though not in the same order. The lives of a common man, the folks we usually come across in our everyday lives and their situations makes for a great read. I would say that Snehaprava Das does a more than commendable job in translating the stories. Brimming with most of the common issues which Odia's grapple with is what is the soul of the book. Specially the treatment of "death" as a subject is treated with a deft and real mature hand.

Hope we get to read more such books. It certainly makes up for a compelling read.

[The Biblioraptor (Ankit) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having completed my first reading of Manoj Panda's stories in translation, I can put him in the category of one of the masters of this form.

This is one of the very few postmodenist texts that I have read that focus less on technique and more on thematic complexity, which comes with a specific focus on form. The deconstructionist approach to his writing enables Panda to develop a very unusual lexicon of his own, is another trait that makes reading his work appealing to the right audience. All this combined make the Panda borderline untranslatable but Snehaprava Das has come really close to giving us a rendition that could be termed "authentic".

More on this later. (Hopefully.)

[Rehana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went in with the least expectation from this book because not very many books translated from the Odia are famous. But guess who surprised me with a collection of stories that are outrageously courageous, intricately woven, and written with brilliance and wit? If you had told me that a group of stories from Odia would make it to my best short story collection read this year, I wouldn’t have trusted you at first. But now I do. I have learnt not to judge by what’s a common notion.

I would say this is the only anthology where every story had a brilliant arc, save but one which was good nevertheless, but just couldn’t stand up to its own contenders. My most favourite ones were ‘When The Gods Left’ and ‘Filling in the Blanks’ which explored how caste system oppresses fellow humans in the name of God, ‘One Thousand Days In A Refrigerator’ and ‘Sentenced To A Honeymoon’, dissecting the love-hate relationship between the husband and wife and insecurities in a marriage through eccentric concepts, ‘The testimony of God’ which speaks of how even God’s own testimony is not enough to provide justice for the downtrodden in this spiteful society and ‘A Letter from Mesopotamia’ which reflects the clutches of patriarchy over women in and out of marriage.

The translation is one of the finest I have read in recent times and has done complete justice to the process itself. If you ever want to read a collection of stories that inspires, intrigues and leaves a lasting impression, then do not miss out on this one.

[Mohan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wide variety of stories - different in narrative style, content, themes, but each explores humanity deeply in the context of society.

Whether it is Hiram's family being cruelly ostracized, or the long-term delirium of a family ravaged by sunstrokes, there is darkness and misery, tenderly told. It is not all gloom and doom. A couple comes together when the husband's eccentricities are seen in a different light.

Quite recommended.

[Chetan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most striking book, I have read. It makes me think about our culture and society. It is must read.

[Raji · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I had not set myself the challenge of reading a book from each state in India, I probably would not have encountered Manoj Kumar Panda. I am rather literal, and allegories unfortunately slip past my radar. However, most of Panda’s tales, although seemingly fantastical, are rooted in reality. It is only when his tales move towards the higher end of the absurd spectrum that they fail to work for me, and these were rare in this collection. Most of the stories from this Odia writer I found rather moving.

They highlight individual struggle (‘One thousand days in a refrigerator’) as well as societal ills (‘The Hunt’) and sometime both (‘When the Gods Left’). And Panda does serve up the unexpected. The title story itself took some of the presumptions I developed in the first few paragraphs and crumpled it up and threw it out the window, revealing unpleasant but essentially human realities.

‘The Hunt’ was a tale I found particularly painful, chronicling as it does the destruction of a family as well as the superstitions and social practices that continue to keep the poor in the state they probably have been in for ages, in spite of the presence of modern, seemingly secular administrative agencies like the tehsildar, the Forest Department, etc. “Old Jhankar permitted the villagers to commit all kinds of sins. Anyone who committed a sin could escape retribution with the help of this priest. He drank the sinner’s share of venom just as Lord Shiva drank all the poison thrown up by the mythical churning of the ocean. Thus, it was only natural for the villagers to regard Jhankar as their saviour. The villagers were spared the trouble of having to think rationally for themselves and of taking responsibility for their actions. They accepted all his decrees without murmur.”

Repeatedly in Panda’s stories, I found an India that is raw, ugly, pitiful, and real and fallible, and maybe far too gone for anyone to redeem, a thought Panda seems to echo in ‘The Testimony of God’. This sense of futility I also found in other tales (‘A Picture of Agony’, ‘The Dreamer’s Tale’) where it seemed like no matter what the protagonists did, they could not escape their eventual fate.

Some tales left me wanting something more though. ‘Pronunciation Therapy’, for instance, started off with a promising premise, especially for the English editor in me. The story features a doctor who is obsessed with correct pronunciation, who even refuses to treat patients who mispronounce words. However, the eventual development of the story seemed to render this quirk meaningless. It is possible I am missing something, but the story left me dissatisfied.

Some ideas and sentences were repetitive, like the idea that humans have a need to fill up empty spaces, which recurs almost verbatim in ‘Kanishka’ and ‘Filling in the Blanks’. This can be a little grating but then it also produces this: ‘Adult human beings keep playing the game of filling in blanks without pause, without scruple, without shame. Yet, at times, someone’s vacant eyes have to be filled with dreams, a bird has to be put into the empty space under someone’s ribcage; all consolations and promises in love letters have to be ground, made liquid, and poured down someone’s feeding tube; all faith and all gods have to be pushed into the hole under the husking-pedal and pounded into fine dust.’ Which is just the kind of paragraph that makes me pause and admire the skill of Panda, the writer and the observer.

Overall, this was a disquieting, absorbing, and enlightening collection. I also found translator Snehaprava Das’s note at the end very helpful in understanding Panda’s style. I would definitely recommend the collection!

[Contemporary_literary_threads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Translated from Odia by Snehaprava Das, the fourteen stories in the collection 'One Thousand Days in a refrigerator by Manoj Kumar Panda' highlights human nature, especially those who are not privileged enough.

This is one of those books I bought on a whim and because of its title.
Like the absurd title, some stories follow a course of absurdities that are beyond reality. Panda has explored the subject of human nature in unique ways. The story titled 'Kaniska' focuses on the bond of a physically challenged baby and his baby sitter. He shows how a baby sitter fills those empty spaces of the child.
In another story 'Fill in the blanks' Panda brings a simple detail of life, sometimes we miss things, and it's hard to fill every blank of it. But it's a game we must go on playing.

In "When the Gods left", a lower caste man finds an opportunity to earn a living after taking the dead cow out of a Brahmins home because the gods have left the cow's body.

One of my favourite stories was "Pronunciation Therapy", starting with a humorous take. A doctor denies treating his patient because he hates those who mispronounce, but it ends on a grim note.

In "Testament of God", we see how nobody can win against god's will, and the human race will be well off if we accept this fate.

In another bold, fierceness story, "fragments", a rape victim decides to meet the family of the man who raped her. I was stunned to read the story. And my mind questioned, 'whether this happened for real?'

This book is the finest short story books I have read after "Peace has come". But it also made me sad because such brilliant writers are not reaching enough readers. Their works do not belong in a slush pile but to be cherished.

I recommend this one highly.

Rating- 4.5🌟/5🌟
Unique, absurd, thought-provoking

[Anirudh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very rarely you come across books where you feel the translators have done their job very well. This is one such book. The way some of the lines are written, the impact of them is so high that you wonder how it would have been in the actual writeup.

The stories are poignant and evocative. Sheds light on some of the harsh realities and beliefs still prevalent in the society.

There is this one line which will reverberate for sometime in my thoughts, "She drank the venom from all the aspersions and swallowed a flood of silent tears with a stoic resignation."

Worth the read

[Shoban Chittuprolu · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5

[amshu · Rating 3 out of 5]

As is with most short story collections, some of these were absolutely brilliant and others fell short. Definitely going to be reading more of Kumar Panda's work though.

[Prasad GR · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bizarre bunch of stories that is hard to believe are from India and that too in a regional language. Thanks to the translator's efforts, we get to discover such hidden gems! All the stories are quite short and crisp. The language is exceptional too. Couple of stories are so hard hitting that they will remain with me forever.

[Roma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read good reviews of this book and it's unusual title generated curiosity for me to read these tales penned in it. This book is a translation of Odia book. I admit the stories are quite intriguing and rich in providing food for thoughts.

The book has a total of 14 short stories. Each story very different from the other. Each story has great characterisation and incidents narrated. Some stories has very unexpected end while others create a deep impact. I can't say I didn't like any short story but there are some which remains with you even after the book is over. The titular story is an amazing read, a picture of agony stays with you for long.

Every story has a unique theme depicting various layers of human behaviour. The author has a great vision and observation while the translator has done a stupendous job on the book. Each story has different visuals which is a delight for readers. You can empathize with almost all the characters of the stories.

I loved this book and the stories will remain with me for some time. I would recommend this book to avid readers. 4/5 is the rating I give this book.

Follow my book reviews on https://readitbyroma.blogspot.in

[Pawan Rajak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book-1000 days in a refrigerator
Author- Manoj Kumar Panda
Rating-3.8/5

My Take

1000 days in a refrigerator by Manoj Kumar panda is a collection of 14 short stories which are completely different from one another but there's one thing that holds each of them together is pain and grief. To be honest not all the stories are impact full but yes there's a few that will make you question the society and your own perspective towards life. How short life is and how shocking its gifts are. Not all gifts are pleasing. Some comes with a baggage of grief that we need to learn to fight. Sometime we win and sometime we lose but the fighting is for real and it's hard. Only a person dealing it will probably know what grief is like but yet we won't know how brutal it is and to how much extent it can break someone.
It's a good read. Recommended.