Tara Isabel Zambrano has published widely in literary journals, mainly stories that center around mothering in one fashion or another, usually set in India or with Indian characters in the diaspora. Now she’s compiled these stories and more in Ruined a Little When We Are Born, which continues with the theme of mothering.
Zambrano’s writing is elegant and descriptive, and her stories are generally only a few pages or less. She doesn’t mince words and always sets up her stories with many possibilities of what’s to come in the following paragraphs. In “One Milky Way”, a story towards the beginning of this collection, she writes about an unnamed character in Delhi who misses her husband, away on a trip:
I get up in the pale blue of the night, clots of dreams behind my eyes. A hunchback appears where there had been your brown jacket on the chair. I walk in the verandah until I reach the edge of the balcony and back to my desk. The screensaver on my laptop has changed from mountains to oceans to volcanoes and craters. Places we have visited in what seems like another century and brought the skyline back, fitted it in this bone-white house. The flowers in the vase have wilted to mark the passage of this week without you.
In another story, “Saanwalee”, the narrator speaks about her mother’s disdain for her daughter’s dark skin. The title means dark skin and the story begins as the narrator speaks of the different ways her mother has tried to lighten her skin, beginning with making her sleep in the moonlight. Again, Zambrano writes with vivid description:
I fell asleep to the bright button of the moon rising and falling, its dye whitewashing the world and filling my nose with mucus. In the mornings, my mother inspected my skin, a grim resignation in her eyes. During the bath hour, she rubbed my body with a past of wheat fiber mixed with honey and sandalwood. My limbs and torso rippled like a sea floor with bumps. Red and blue. Bruises, cuts bright and raw, eventually swallowed by a darker, healing layer. “No one likes a sanwalee girl,” my mother hissed, “no one,” and scrubbed harder every subsequent time.
Magical realism enters the last story, “Skin, Breached”. A man mourns his recently-deceased wife and finds a way to remember her with the help of a seamstress and her daughter. Magical realism plays a role in other stories, but it’s difficult to remember that because her characters all seem realistic in a realistic setting.
The book takes its name from another story near the end of the book, a sentimental tale of childhood and accepting a new sibling into the family. The narrator writes about herself and her sisters and how they yearned for their mother’s attention when their baby brother—the only boy in the family—is born.
A Ganesh pooja is organized in our home for the newborn. A black teeka on his forehead to ward off the evil eye of visitors. Our brother looks so peaceful in his sleep, the room bends around him, and we forgive him for a moment. On the patio, there is a stall with sweets and samosa, a cup of chai for everyone except us so there’s no shortage of food for the guests.
Those who read around may have encountered Zambrano’s stories from one or more journals like Shenandoah, Margins AAWW, Electric Literature and The Rumpus. And for those that haven’t, Ruined a Little When We Are Born is a chance to encounter her work all in one place.