Half a Rupee is a collection of stories named after the story with that title, which appears later on, and the collection is sorted into several groups of three or four stories each, stories about different topics generally of interest to the writer.
Gulzar to some extent and Sahir Ludhianavi to a far more committed extent were leftists - Sahir was about to be arrested for his leftist political commitment in his chosen or default home in the other part of India as it was before independence, and had to escape to India as it is post independence, and yet he said it was lucky for Mumbai to have him, rather than admitting he was lucky he could get away and not be arrested to spend life in jail, rather than the respect and fame and prestige and satisfactory work he had during his life in India. Gulzar in that tradition sympathises with a suicide bomber who plans to blow up a prime minister, and writes a story and publishes it, apart from a film or more he made on the topic.
Wonder if they had courage enough to battle for Malala and her ilk. Easy to target a democracy, especially one that does not penalise you for being in minority, politically or in any other way.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
The first part is about somewhat well known people as far as Indian intelligentsia and media go, Kuldeep Nayar and Bhushan Banmali and various far more famous film persona from Mumbai - poets Jaan Nisaar Akhtar and his sone Javed Akhtar whom they called Jaadu (magic), and their friend Sahir Ludhianavi, and more. Interesting, and with twists at the end to give one a pause if not a tear.
Both Gulzar and Kuldeep Nayyar - the latter a famous journalist - were from the part of India that separated at independence, and this story is about longing for a lost home where they were thrown out of while young, with riots and massacres that those fleeing escaped although they lost a great deal including their homes and any right to return or even visit. They seek to band aid this pain with visits to border on the independence day, rather the midnight of the day changing from the day of independence of one to that of the other, since Jinnah set that of his part to one day prior to that of India. But this vigil at the border at midnight is a lonely one with no one on the other side - those that would come are prevented by the government of Pakistan for fear a friendship might develop and threaten the government agenda of keeping separate and at war.
Kudeep Nayyar relates to Gulzar and the latter to the readers about a grave of an unknown muslim saint - pir - that was under a holy pipal tree which the former's mother recalls with nostalgia and more; the tree she venerated as per her beliefs and the pir was her confidante when she needed to speak of her heart's tears. Nayyar attempts to visit the grave because he had a vision of the pir telling him he - the pir - was cold, and his mother asked him to cover the grave with a shawl, but neither the grave nor the tree are to be found, and only reluctantly one current occupant of the land admits to having found a grave but tells him it was moved, and there is no way to find the pir now.
Saturday, March 29, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
It takes a while to realise this story is more than just a factual account, that it is in fact a very subtle denouement of the very idea of partitioning a nation to form a separate homeland for part of the population on basis of religion - because after all the homeland consisted more of driving out or killing every other citizen of the land so it could be as monochrome in faith as they could make it, and it is still a living hell for those that did not then come across the border and now often do have to find refuge in India. But then they are not the only ones - people of the faith that forced a partition of the nation have returned or simply come across for refuge too, since they find life better in original motherland that is for all rather than restricted to one "faith".
As a matter of fact, not only the homeland was not chosen by everyone of that particular faith, which amounts to it was far from necessary if majority of them could after all live right where they always did, but often enough during the decades since people of that faith have found it difficult to deal with the new homeland if they indeed chose to go there, and they were treated abominably by their new co-faith brethren, and not on par as equal citizens.
But all this factual information that one takes for granted is what makes one take a while to realise that the writer here has proceeded with another very vital factor of the whole question and debate, and has subtly destroyed the very foundations of the notion of a separate nationhood for a faith - by pointing at evidence of lack of the very faith in the very people who replaced the ones that lived there, while those that had to flee had dealt better with it all.
Nayyar's mother was a Hindu (not that the information is provided by the writer but her regard for a tree one assumes is not shared in the other faith in Punjab, unless a person does so because one is free to) and she lit a lamp on the grave of the pir every time she went round the tree as per her belief, and what is more she talked to him, telling him all that bothered her and finding solace; when her son told her about the pir telling him he - the pir - was cold, she insisted he go across the border and offer his shawl to the pir.
This much one finds natural enough. But already the basis of the partition of the nation is questionable when one realises this is not limited to one person and people generally had regard for all faiths and do, in India. The further bit again is natural according to human nature but destroys the basis of partition. For, it is the Muslims who replaced the Hindu and Sikh original populace that have not only destroyed the grave, with no regard to the fact that it was supposed to be someone of their own faith, a saint whose grave ought to be venerated and not destroyed, but worse, the place is built up on with homes and shops, and no one knows where the pir's remains can be found, if they were buried again or simply thrown away, or what.
So much for faith that created havoc and killed millions, the writer points out without a word to the effect - it was only land acquisition after all, one may infer. So does he realise it is now precisely the same going on in Kashmir, not for faith or anything remotely to do with spiritual beliefs but only to do with profit and land acquisition and throwing out those that can be threatened by bullies with whatever excuse?
Poor of British isles were encouraged to leave with carrots and sticks and this is how three huge nations in two other continents were populated, once. Across the northern borders of India the scene now repeats on all sides.
Friday, April 4, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Saahir and Jaadu is about those two poets and friends and other film persona involved - Jaan Nisaar Akhtar, the father of Javed Akhtar (Jaadu) and the years of the latter's youth when he was on a warpath with the famous father, and took refuge often with Sahir who was friend of both.
Bhushan Banmali was a friend of Gulzar who lived with him and wrote and had friends and relationships that seem out of run of the mill, and the story tells about his two close relationships with women who happened to be his wife and her mother, apart from travel and life with Gulzar and other friends. The part about trip through Himaalaya is very interesting, especially more so if one has been there, but even otherwise for various reasons.
Friday, March 28, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Next part is about poor people, slum dwellers of Mumbai and perhaps of the largest slum known in Asia - although by standard US definitions most who call themselves middle class in Asia would be considered poor. Realities of lives of poor in city slums are comprehensible if one puts oneself in their position, but most of those in position to change their lives and make it better in fact do the opposite due to not doing that - not considering what they would like if living in those circumstances - and so the poor end up living far worse.
Surprise, surprise - a slum on ground with ill constructed huts might be far worse than an apartment block well constructed with small apartments and proper plumbing even if every apartment has a bathroom and toilet for its residents. For starters, in a slum with huts on ground people might have possibilities of sowing a plant or more, and in an apartment one needs to buy equipment and limit the plants to what can grow in pots, so most poor won't and so the place stinks.
Stench tells about how politicians might prefer the cement blocks because they contain the stench of poverty. Rain tells about how a poor drunk uses all his wits to save his drink bottles even as the rain is devastating his slum, people therein, possessions and women and children, including his own.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
The Charioteer is about a man who cleans the little ferries plying from Gateway of India in Mumbai to Elephanta Caves on an island near Mumbai, and his life of back breaking work that is never ending from dawn until the last ferry return. Rich tourists from the famous Taj Mahal hotel close to the Gateway of India are from rich western nations and they arrive early, while there are various tours conducted with packs of tourists from various parts of the world and then home tourists from that take the ferry for a day's outing. The cleaner has to clean up trash thrown by them, and silently does not oppose those that throw it in the ocean in spite of being instructed otherwise. Cleaning up people's vomit that falls unwittingly in the boat rather than over the rails into the sea is difficult enough. But - when he gets home, and takes on the role of the head of the household that has his wife and grown up children and their spouses and his grandchildren, he then is the king of his own world. It is the story of every poor man working hard for a living. ..........................................................................
..........................................................................
From the Footpath is about poor that dwell on sidewalks of towns and cities in India, having arrived from rural areas for work that is necessary to survive - rural areas with political mishandling and corruption make it impossible to many to survive, whether they have land as a family or none. Housing in cities and towns is either not easy to find or far too expensive, which is the same for someone poor, and dwelling on sidewalks without even jobs makes it possible for them to find some work for themselves and survive.
One such woman living on sidewalks is the main character here, and she survives by collecting objects from garbage that could be sold for pennies so she can sell them. Her trials and travails what with various males around that would not let her alone or support her either is a major concern, and her dealing with all this and her heart as well is the story.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Part three consists of three stories and they are about the border between the two sides, a border that may or may not at a given point be the one fixed at partition, since the first war in 1948 tore away more than half of Kashmir. The whole part might as well be named LoC, as the first story is.
LoC refers to line of control, the border between India and Pakistan that is not the one legally awarded but one post many incursions and wars when India was not able to push back the invading Pakistan, due mainly to international pressure for India to let go.
LoC in part three is about how relationships on the two sides are more complex, with not only families that were split apart at partition but old friends that ended up on different sides, and have only love for one another while they are fighting skirmishes and battles regularly or otherwise, especially when there is a politician visiting the border or someone from across the border fires at Indian posts.
Major Kulwant Singh discovers that his subordinate is getting the delicacies he loves from across the border, and what is more from home of the opposing army, where the subordinate's relative happens to be an old friend of the major. But a battle happens just as the major has arranged for the old friend's mother to visit his own family and to be conducted to the shrine at Ajmer; he dies in the skirmish.
Saturday, March 29, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Over in part three is about a situation where a film unit with Gulzar visits a border village for filming, and the contrast of realities of the border with the normal life expectations of a civil population from a mega city. The title is from the habit of one soldier who ends every bit of his conversation with "over" because he is more used to speaking with someone on his two way transmitter, and this is days or rather decades before cellphones were available to general populace anywhere.
The film heroine wishes to try shooting, and wonders what will happen if she shot someone accidentally, or if the army post across the border thought they were being shot at. The film unit is in difficulty re toilet, especially for the female contingent, because there is no provision of proper toilets - everyone at the border including the village and the army post is huts without permanent construction, and the unending desert is convenient with no lack of places to be used for toilet, but the film unit is delicate in that they wish for one with a door that can be closed so their female colleagues are not inconvenienced.
And then there are various people whose home is across the border in Sindh, left wholly in Pakistan now after partition. They are nostalgic for the home, the village. But while one might cross the marshy salt desert that forms a large part of desert at this place, and not be in danger of being shot at, one might really be more in danger of being lost and dying of heat and lack of water.
One such film worker does attempt and is lucky in finding a man atop a camel to take him across and bring him back, for he is local and does that regularly - his camel knows the way. He has a wife on this side and a lover on the other that he had to flee because people there were about to kill him, and now the two lovers are married to other people and have two children each, but these visits continue. The wife on this side wishes he would bring the lover over, and assures the visitor the two women would find a way to live together, just so the man can stay put in one place.
So over is just as much about various local people going over as about military people saying "over".
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
The Rams in part three is parable and fact in how the people on the two sides of the border enjoy watching fights of rams and sometimes behave just the same way. But the story is little to do with actual such behaviour by the army, and is about far more humane behaviour.
During the '1971 war about Bangladesh becoming independent when India had to help the beleaguered part of India before 1947 that was yoked to the dominant part Pakistan during partition, this story is about the border on the west, where action then was minor. One group of Pakistan army finds a village on Indian side empty but for a small boy, very frightened and unwilling to speak. They take him along back with them but would rather hand him back over safely to his own people rather than the formal rule of treating him as prisoner of war, and towards this try contacting someone from the village the next day, who happens to be from a village across. But when after having hidden the boy from the visiting commander they do finally take him over, there is a group of Indian army men waiting, and this is the least of the surprises. The real one is, the boy is from Pakistan after all, and what is more he is from the village of the old man who had to leave at partition, but the boy was visiting across the border to "see the fight of rams".
It is not clear if he is referring to actual rams or the armies.
Sunday, March 30, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Part four is about ordinary people, not only poor adults but middle class and children as well, living in times not quite as civilised as we would like to think we do. Part four deals with trying times, what with terrorism and attacks on women and bombings of lands to root out terrorists that affect normal people because bombs do not discriminate who they affect, and so on.It has three stories about diverse situations.
Hilsa is about perfectly normal middle class with their sweet and sour life's pleasures in a city that experiences attacks on people including not only women but pregnant women; it begins with why one should not eat fish or do fishing during certain months, specifically summer, because the fish mate and are likely to have not yet reproduced, so one is killing the eggs or babies as well - and ends with a gory parallel between human lives and reproduction sanctity violated in a society when strictures regarding other species being killed for human needs or pleasures are let go. It is a reminder that civilisation is not merely about one species.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
The Stone Age is about a poor family - although we do not know if they were poor always or were rendered so by destruction of their home and wherewithal - in Afghanistan affected by various outsiders raining bombs via helicopters and roaming about in jeeps with machine guns spraying bullets, and a small boy trying to survive even as his family disintegrates right before his eyes. His little sister is instantly dead when their home collapses and she is caught under the wall, or at least we would like to think she was, the alternative being a little girl under three still alive under the collapsed wall with her family fleeing rather than rescuing her.
The timeline given is of Russian occupation but it could just as well be now, or any time during the last few decades. People killed by bombs probably do not care if they came from north or west. And children merely ask if the foreigners of this other tribe that are trying to kill them - well, does not matter, they have little time to even live with the families, never mind what they can ask the elders. Escaping the house falling and the jeep roaming with foreigners spraying bullets takes priority over other questions.
Then it is refuge in a mosque, then fleeing the mosque when it is under siege, and then the boy finds himself in a heap of dead and mangled bodies and pieces when he returns to search for his father and is carried off in the truck he was hiding in, to be thrown on a mountain of the said dead bodies.
Last bit, he is hiding in a cave, trying to sharpen a stone with another, so he could deal with the eyes he sees in the dark cave - he is only four. Return to stone age it is.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
The Search is about the anger and anguish of the various characters and the writer about the treatment meted out to various people due mainly to their being of a faith blamed for terrorist acts and all related to that faith being thereby suspect of further such acts at any given time or place, and the title refers to frequent searches they have to go through of their baggage and home and person, whether in travel or living at home.
This story in particular is about Kashmir, and the writer limits it to only Muslims of Kashmir and their woes due to this suspicion and searches and disappearances of sons and other young males of the valley. One is uncertain if the person accredited at the end, Humra Kuraishi, is the author or only the protagonist who told her story to Gulzar, but whoever the author is has committed a double sleight of hand fraud hoping to fool others and certain of gathering sympathy of Muslims in general.
The sleight of hand and double fraud here is to equate Kashmir with Muslims, which is as far from true in India as it gets - it is on par with equating, say, US with exclusively rich, and forgetting that there are rich elsewhere and plenty of poor in US too.
So the writer and the protagonist forget about the non Muslims of the state massacred and threatened and forced to leave and be refugees in their own nation away from their homes in Kashmir, while at the same time preferring not to mention other Muslims of India when discussing problems of Muslims in Kashmir, and not giving a thought to the fact that if there had been no terrorism there would be no problems there either - it is not due to faith but due to the fact of there being no guarantee of when, not if but when, someone might turn out to be a terrorist or a suicide bomber.
That the demand for separation due to faith conveniently forgets the question of what about those of other faith that belonged there and were thrown out, even apart from the question of other Muslims of India who have chosen to stay rather than migrate at partition, is another fraud - one might suspect it is salami tactic, and could be not far from truth at that.
As for the main anguish here, a thorough search of person and baggage while travelling to or from Kashmir, the writer again does the same double fraud with sleight of hand - such unpleasantness has to be born by most people and certainly those of Asian origin when travelling almost anywhere by flight, at almost every airport, and it is due to the attack by terrorists using planes as weapons little over a decade ago.
At that one cannot help but reflect that if only India had instituted such thorough searches of passengers even before that, having had her planes blown up in mid eighties, perhaps the hijacking of India's plane to Kandahar and freeing of a terrorist to save two hundred lives of the passengers of that plane might not have happened at all - or if US had helped India rather than watching on tarmac as the terrorist was handed over and vanished, US might not have been attacked using planes subsequently, for it was he who masterminded the attack on US as is well known (and some right wing US persons again perform a sleight of hand double fraud by blaming India for the attack on US for freeing the terrorist, never mind the few hundred passengers of AI who happened to be of not right colour or race after all!).
So the writer here conveniently forgets it all and goes out with the story begging for sympathy, and one wonders, would the problems of the world or even Muslims be over if Kashmir were given up by India? No - that is where the fraud is, for it is salami tactics. If Jerusalem is given it would be the rest of Israel then on target, and if Kashmir were given it would be rest of India, death to all other faiths.
So any sympathy for anyone suffering in this story has to be even more limited with provisos than other stories of the collection so far - if they suffer in this one, don't forget others do, and that is even before speaking of hundreds, thousands dead due to terrorism perpetrated in India by those helped by the nation across border to Northwest, and artificial border created by British colonial rulers minutes before leaving so India would never be free of such problems. Will this stop if everyone were forced to convert at gunpoint, not likely - one has only to read accounts of permanent purge that was very well explained by Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Monday, March 31, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Farewell is a story from part five, which is about Naxalite movement in India, so named after the small rural place Naxalbari in West Bengal (east Bengal is what is now called Bangladesh, the half that split away from motherland in '47 at partition and then had to seek independence because faith based nations don't necessarily work when all other bases are diverse and diversity not acceptable to basis of the nation).
In essence Naxalite movement is the extreme leftist movement and while there are probably enough justifications for such a necessity - what with the British propagating and furthering the landholding consolidations begun by the previous foreign rulers for their own interests of holding on to a nation not their own (since it is easier to bribe a few rich softies than to control a few million who do well without need of protection and charity), and the government since then mostly consisting of the party that carried on the same system while mouthing leftist sentiments and carrying out half baked measures to control anyone who might do well but nothing to help general populace do well - the truth in spite of such dire actions of militant sort being necessary to wake up authorities is that this movement is not all indigenous, and a good deal of help in form of propaganda as well as arms and ammunition is supplied across one border or another to the north, the two neighbours that fought wars with India being interested in keeping India off balance for ever.
In Farewell again Gulzar attempts to do a bit of sleight of hand, and portrays a Naxalite as a mysterious hero whom the police is unable to even see much less catch, while the youth and intelligentsia is all afire and swayed by his poetry in spirit of the movement - thus evoking subliminally the Russian revolution era of writers and poets bringing people, or rather masses as leftists call them, to the movement emotionally, and the writer is not above cashing on the independence movement of India with the end of the story being reminiscent of some independence warriors' final words and end as they were caught or about to be caught by the colonial rulers, with reference to farewell to mother by which is really meant motherland, Mother India.
Gulzar had done this sleight of hand in a film he wrote and produced in portraying Punjab terrorists as human while painting the police as ruthless inhuman faces of authority who get humane treatment from the very people they have been treating ill, but refraining from mentioning why the fracas began or how it was carried out by the terrorists (who he painted as people forced to go to war due to police brutality, avoiding the beginning of the real terrorists that were caught in the propaganda war when they went for pilgrimage across the border into their old lands separated by partition, and supplied with arms and ammunition and training with aim of dividing India once again) - and so he attempts to do here as well with leftists terror of Kolkata or Calcutta as the British version of the city's name was.
Here he has introduced yet another not uncommon indirect way to deal with hero, by the intriguing notes appearing under the doormat of a student in a hostel in Calcutta that make no sense to him, except the rears are informed the student shares the name of the naxalite hero and thereby the general popular epithet the hero is known by being bestowed on the student by his colleagues. Then it is mostly descriptions of the movement and hero alternating with the student and his current life, and a surprising revelation to stun the reader at the end, replete with the emotional reference to a poetic farewell to mother.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Swayamvar is the second story from part four, and it is about a suicide bomber on her last couple of days and what she might have thought or felt during her last hours.
Why Gulzar is so fascinated by someone committing a suicide bombing planned for a murder of a national leader is a good question, and not in the sense the phrase is used in US either - the answer is not too far to find, perhaps, only thinly veiled. He made a film about this particular act as did another well known film maker and neither film did well in India, at least not outside the state of the other film maker which happens to be where such a murder was perpetrated not too long ago, which gave such inspiration to these two and perhaps more people to not only try to "understand" but portray it on film, and here in writing published under a name attempting to give it a rightful form.
Swayamvar - and the right sound rather than a particular spelling is relevant here as in every case where a Sanskrt based name is used - is, literally, act of choosing one's bridegroom, "vara" or "wara" or "var" (sound rather than spelling, again, since all Sanskrt based scripts of India are phonetic, unlike any Mediterraenean script including Roman), and this choice is not merely a choice but the whole word Swayamvara used to be a ceremony where various candidates were invited so the bride could choose after looking at every one and being informed by a friend walking with her at the inspection of candidates.
Here the world applies only in that the suicide bomber has chosen this destiny for herself, but other than that using this word is a hideous caricature of the word, the concept, and even the very culture of the nation.
After all Swayamvara holds the concept of consent of both integral to the process - the bridegroom chosen has to be present to the ceremony by his own choice, and this implies he is willing to be so chosen. Whereas in any murder and particularly one of a national figure, whether by suicide bombing or any other way, the victim is unaware of his future to begin with, and of the intentions of the murderer as well, much less willing to submit to them.
So this is more comparable to the Romans sport of throwing political opponents to beasts to be devoured rather than a bride making a choice from amongst willing and eager candidates for a bridegroom.
But any such admission of reality would go against the twisted romanticisation of a suicide bomber of a national figure in a democracy, and if one does not romanticise it how does one fool readers or film viewers into accepting, buying and helping the author and film maker profiting by it - so the fraud of naming it as this one does. Or is it worse than that?
Often enough one does see regimes where a drastic way out is needed to benefit the general populace barely living under a yoke of despots, only, in reality this even mythologised here took place in a democracy and the victim was at that point not a figure of authority as much as possibly of hope for better rule for people and more likely betterment of his own persona that could have come in a few hours with a visit that never did get made.
If this murder in reality had not happened that day, another day might just have brought about a transformation for the better for the person and the nation, but this was not to be allowed by those that had ordered this murder, since India in turmoil was indeed desired by such powers behind that murder. Which by the way is to say it was far from a woman making a choice for herself - she had been fed some propaganda to the hilt and was in all likelihood unaware of just why this was ordered, paid for, pushed as agenda on the organisation that undertook the physical execution of the orders and the murder.
But then perhaps it is not reality that concerns this author and film maker, or the other one that glorified suicide bombing with a romantic hero that follows the suicide bomber to death forsaking his lovely bride to be; perhaps they are both motivated by politics of revenge perpetrated by those that waging politics of forcing their own agenda on the nation and the world, rather than working for people. So fraud and romanticisation and fooling people it is.
Their films for this purpose, however, flopped, and deserved it.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Half a Rupee is the title story. It is the third and final story from part five, and it is about a young boy from rural northern part of India running away to Mumbai as millions do from all parts of India to escape their poverty and other trails and travails such as loans they have taken to keep appearances or simply to survive, and interest rates they cannot then pay because the rural private lenders (who else would lend them!) charge high and sometimes or often cheat, and more.
In case of this protagonist Chandu, he is merely escaping school and has managed to run clear across the country, and finds that it is not all that easy. One has to pay albeit a small amount to sleep on a sidewalk, and will be shooed away if one cannot. One might however find friends right there and they might provide one with work, which is easier in Mumbai than finding a place to live.
The story here is a platform for the author to air his pet hatred of the city and the state and the general situation he finds himself in (he has a well to do enough lifestyle, and perhaps fondly imagines life is better in another town, another state, another nation nearby), so he puts in all sorts of caricatures of ridiculous nature, including that of English and the local language (perhaps he would force his beloved Urdu on everyone, as one split part of India did only to lose a better half of it), a disease many that settled in the city from elsewhere suffer from; they ought to try living in a state occupying most of the eastern coast in southern half of the nation and try any fraction of the attitude, and would come out of the ordeal completely cured.
The so called story ends even more ridiculously with a politician whom the protagonist works for facing a terrorist wielding a machine gun and asking him who he is, apparently without fear, and a thoughtful discussion between the two about who is more to be feared and what is a preferable option, which is a question they put the protagonist who then tosses the half a rupee coin to decide, and both yell "heads", but the coin does not come down which is well for the protagonist, according to the writer.
One wishes the writer had taken time to think, to perhaps even read, and certainly either polish his works better or write when ripe rather than giving half raw unpalatable themes recognisable as amusing reaction to his peeves whatever they be; his poetry was once lyrical and worth reading, and sometimes even now arresting in bits, but whatever toll taken by life or his own inability to do better than he imagines he should have, this set of half ripe stories is on the whole a revenge on readers that don't deserve it for expecting better of someone with stellar work behind him.
Thursday, April 3, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Gagi and Superman is a story in part six, which is about rather more personal stuff closer to heart or so it would seem from the couple of stories out of the three in this part.
Gagi seems to be the pet name of the little daughter of a famous film maker couple Aruna Raje and Vikas Desai, whose excellent work is well known, together and independently. Pet name because in all likelihood this is how this writer called her or perhaps others too, but the parents had given her something meaningful and with beauty rather than a meaningless word that sounds like something of a sound made by silly adults who think such sounds are what one is supposed to speak to babble to babies or rather at them, while in all likelihood babies however small comprehend a whole lot more.
The reason for this is more than just a very reasonable assumption about well educated and well meaning parents giving beautiful names reflecting their blessings and hopes and dreams to the children - it is also the fact that the writer twists his own daughter's name to something more ridiculous rather than the two beautiful names she has had from her mother as per the mother's Bengali tradition, one for home - Bosky, meaning silk - and one formal, Meghana meaning cloudy; love of clouds in India is as natural as it should be in any place on earth parched with heat where any shade is welcome and rain and breeze a welcome relief, and in India in particular clouds and rains are associated to hope, heaven's gifts, love, relief, and peacocks breaking into dance, a total celebration of beauty.
The writer diminishes his daughter's name to something that might mean "childish", and this is opposite of his valuation of himself - his known and famous name meaning garden of flowers is far from ridiculous and in all likelihood he chose it for a nom de plume, and got rid of his given name somewhere along the line. So one might safely guess he is refraining from mentioning the real, beautiful name of the little girl dying of cancer, daughter of his friends.
The story is about how the children of these couples - Gulzar and his beautiful wife Rakhee who was an actress superlative through the years she performed in films, Aruna Raje and Vikas Desai, and another couple also in film making - played together and were as completely into superman as any child familiar with the concept would be.
This story is real life, and the little daughter of Aruna and Vikas did unfortunately die of cancer at a very young age, and generally this caused havoc in the family life as can be expected. Here it is about how the couple was stunned when they heard the diagnosis, how they decided not to be sad before her and keep her in smiles until she had to find out the truth when she was taken to US and operated on, how it went bad, and more.
The writer won't however let well enough be and takes the opportunity of this tragedy told in his words to poke ridicule at perhaps what was serious faith for the parents of the child, certainly is for more than a billion, and perhaps for the wife of the writer too; is he taking revenge on his wife for separating from him by vicious fun at her faith however subtle, one can only speculate, but indecent of him it is. He covers it not too well by comparing the deity with superman, the latter being all too well understood to be imaginary on par with Santa and indulged in compulsorily for sake of children by conspiring adults.
Perhaps one day if he is so lucky the writer might rise to comprehend that it is easy and cheap to be cynical and poke fun and all the more so when it costs nothing, not even a threat from a believer (unlike in nations immediately to Northwest, of perhaps his faith, but then his roots are deliberately obscure), but an opening of mind and heart and a perception is a step far above this revelling in muck.
There is much to love in the story in spite of the writer and his splintered vision. There is the little girl and her friend the daughter of the writer, the latter another excellent film maker whose very first work went beyond her father - this story is bout events a few decades old - and other such details.
What he does not write but was written long ago by the grieving mother of the dying little girl were other details of their life and subsequent life the bereaved mother lived, when her marriage fell apart due to the death of this child, are things remembered from reading her account of it.
There is, amongst other such little details, the touching mention here of musical heritage of the dying girl whose father's uncle is a very famous, and great in his own way, music composer of quality with unmatched works. The little sick girl can no longer dance but goes on repeating the dance rhythm and one can imagine she is dancing in her mind.
Thursday, April 3, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Ghugu and Jamuni is the second story from part six.This one is more of a parable, being as it is about a bird, presumably parrot or parakeet, usually named Ghuggu in Hindi speaking central parts of the nation (which are mistakenly labled north in an attempt to pretend there are only two noticeable different parts north and south while in reality it is as complex as it gets and various other corners are not to be forgotten or dumped with others and also the fact that there is a north way north of the Hindi belt and comprising of various other languages).
This parrot or parakeet Ghuggu is according to the writer in love with a kite - the kind children fly rather than the predatory bird of course - which happens to be very colourful and very beautiful, and the protagonist bird proceeds to attempt to mate and begins to understand that his beloved whom he names Jamuni after the colour purple (or the fruit that gives that name to the colour) is rather bashful and would fly away as soon as he approaches. Undaunted he goes on chirping at her, marvelling at her not chirping back, and proceeds to build a nest for her in spite of her being so non committal.
In an effort to warn her away in an impending thunderstorm he risks his life and falls unconscious having hit an electric pole, after valiantly battling with strong winds of the storm and more, and comes to consciousness in captivity having been saved by a child. It so happens the child also subsequently manages to catch the bird's beloved kite and the kite comes to rest a few feet from his cage.
One may wonder if this is the way the writer chose to tell himself where he failed in his marriage, for his wife left him to live a life of her own but never did divorce, so it was not about general male excuse of her being with someone else. She was not to be caged by him, and this is what perhaps he finds incomprehensible, because it is only possible for him to sympathise with women - real or otherwise - he does not need for personal life,while his wife he like most men needed to play the traditional role common to all cultures - that of someone who exists only to take care of him.
Thursday, April 3, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
The Orange is from part six, which is about rather more personal stuff closer to heart or so it would seem from the couple of stories out of the three in this part. The third one is The Orange, and having read it now it seems this part is about parables or thinly veiled ways of saying something.
The orange here is real and a symbol both, latter for our home planet Earth. A little boy is sick but insists on his share of the few oranges even though he cannot have it until he is well (the writer picked a strange combination of fruit and sickness here - most illnesses allow one to consume an orange or at least juice thereof, and this boy only has a cold, where citrus fruits are prescribed - was the writer hitting the reader on the head with "this is parable?) but would keep it and look at it, and the story progresses with the story the boy is being told about the earth being seen as a blue green orange seen from distant space by aliens every once in a while with centuries in between viewings. As the story of the destruction of earth by humans progresses seen through alien eyes from distant space, so does that of the real orange being similarly destroyed by insects that have taken over.
It is a good way to tell the children about earth, but they don't need such convoluted deals, they accept facts fine - it is adults, especially those that cannot do without usage of various fossil fuels directly or otherwise. Or those that have invested heavily in such products and find alternatives difficult.
At that one might give a thought about other problems plaguing the earth that are generally not mentioned in conjunction with greenhouse gases or global warming, nevertheless are just as genuinely of concern about what we are doing to earth - such as the modern plumbing and what this is doing to our rivers and oceans. Most people would hate to use open fields as an alternative to secure closed spaces for toilets, and few would think poor of this world are virtuous since they don't have plumbing. Yet it is the very well to do that can afford to and do enjoy swimming in oceans, and usually people are content being taken care of by authorities informing them if the particular beach is too close to sewage pipes. Is that good enough, one might wonder - it is ocean where everything flows or floats, or can, after all.
But then most people who eat non vegetarian food don't stop to ask what the meat consumed when it was a creature alive, and most fish and other sea creatures are just as likely to have consumed human parts as sewage; crabs, one is informed on info channels, are the cleaners of the ocean, and clean up anything and everything - and most meat eaters not only are happy to consume crabs but usually it is considered a delicacy. So - so much for human thinking.
Friday, April 4, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Under the Earth is a story from part seven, which deals with death and how people face it.
Under the Earth is about a man who wakes up as his building with several floors is going through an earthquake, and he runs out to see his neighbours doing the same, everyone in a panic. The lift is not available and the stairs cave all the way under the earth as he is trying to go down. He is trapped and sure if being dead when he is conscious, and is content, waiting for the two angels as per his religion - he is Muslim - who he expects to visit him. He is most disappointed to find himself not dead after all, when he is found by rescuers after some eighteen days, alive.
The writer has left perhaps deliberately uncertain the question of which earthquake is being mentioned here, Bhuj or Kashmir or something entirely different.
Saturday, April 5, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Shortcut is the second story from part seven, which deals with death and how people face it.
Here the friends group from an earlier story, Bhushan Banmali, is on the trails in Himaalaya again, this time with a vehicle and a driver from Delhi. There is much to deal with what with roads only sometimes good, and this being not the best of affairs - when the roads are not raw paths they are likely to have uncertainty of whether the next stretch would be good, and more. Then there is cold to deal with and vehicles breaking down, even before one takes into consideration the volatile nature of the mountains where a landslide might occur any time at any place.
Himaalaya is rising steadily with Indian plate pushing and this makes the whole region, from Himaalaya down into Indian land - and this does not mean political labels of the day but the land that is referred to since antiquity by that name as far as those outside the land are concerned - and perhaps the most volatile is still the Himaalaya, which again refers to the whole sum of the snowcapped mountains that form the northern boundary of the ancient land from westernmost to easternmost edge, whatever the divisions and new nomenclatures ascribed dividing the mountains into several names and labels during last couple of centuries by those not of India.
The story here proceeds to let the reader experience travel along those small roads and a short cut along a smaller one taken by the writer and his friends so they might arrive sooner than way past midnight to where they might rest, while they see a small car passing them along the way with speed possible to small and powerful vehicles. There is the Yogi and local expert who can tell sitting in his ashram (literally, place of refuge, usually in the spiritual sense) at Hrishikesh that it seems to have snowed at Joshimath (originally named Jyotirmath), which is several miles up the road to Badrinath.
Then the shock of the driver stopping the vehicle and descending to see more - there is a huge rock right in the middle of the path, and one knows without being told that it has fallen recently, and that it bodes ill. Indeed the rock has a wheel and an axle of the car that had overtaken them more than once, and they all step out to see if anyone is alive. The car is turned turtle way deep down below the road due to having been struck by the rock fallen on it from above, and the driver is dead.
He has indeed found a short cut, comments the driver.
The writer attempts to induce some poetic descriptions in his usual convoluted style, but this is a huge mistake, for at least two reasons. For one if one has been anywhere near Himaalaya and even seen the peaks at a distance, the grandeur, the beauty can only be experienced, and the simplest way of describing it brings it home, especially if one has been to those places. For another this attempt to induce one's own two bits seems pathetic, and one wonders why he is unable to perceive and open up to it in silence, rather than trying to paint his usual convoluted descriptions - here, simplest ones would be the best.
Saturday, April 5, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Pickpocket is the third and last story from part seven, which deals with death and how people face it. This one is about a couple that waited long to have a child, and are anxiously or eagerly expecting one now.
The man returns home one day to be informed by a neighbour that his wife has gone into labour and is in the hospital. He is stressed enough that this is several days too soon, and keeps returning to his home to change or collect his wallet, and then is unable to find a vehicle quickly to take him; when it is time to pay, he realises his wallet has been picked by a pickpocket when he was paying more attention to getting to the hospital than to being safe from them in crowds of Mumbai.
At the hospital after a time of anxiety he is faced by the doctor after the operation his wife needed due to complications, to be informed that the baby was still born, and at this he is unrepentant in addressing his "big guy above" and calling him the biggest pickpocket of all, not caring about blasphemy this time.
Saturday, April 5, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Dusk is a story from eighth and final part of the collection, which deals with old age and facing last years with family and alone.
Dusk is about a couple with grown up children and young grandchildren, and dealing with social trends and relationships and one's own past and mindset, culture and fashion, tradition and dominance. Culturally Indian women are not supposed to cut hair until they face widowhood, just as males are not supposed to shave moustaches until bereaved of parents, and this changes if and when the relevant bereavement does arrive - then one is supposed to do it. This was followed rigourously until colonial trends changed it in parts of upper and thereby in trend followers in middle and lower strata, but is still deep in psyche of most.
Here the protagonist finds his wife with a short bob post her accompanying the daughter in law to the latter's parents who are military and therefore modern set, and while the wife attempts to explain that the hair will grow back soon enough, he is shocked to the core where an entirely different process is set in motion. He does not blame her, accepts explanations and even apologies gracefully from the women of his family, and does not blame the mother of the daughter in law who did it to his wife - the latter being not as dominant as the former - but stops talking generally nevertheless. Then one day he vanishes, telling them he is going to visit his daughter, but they find he is not there, and finally have to go through official channels of search.
None of it would be any use except the place where he found refuge and lived informs them he is unwell, but they rush only to find him gone - and now that he is no more, ironically his wife can perfectly legitimately have a haircut, with his permission too.
Saturday, April 5, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
Dadaji is a story from eighth and final part of the collection, which deals with old age and facing last years with family and alone.
Dada in central and northern India (east, west and south can be different from one another and from central Hindi belt and north too) refers to paternal grandfather, with "ji" attached to addressing or referring to anyone as a matter of respect; this can be by choice but is not a choice when referring to or addressing someone elder or senior, culturally speaking. Addressing seniors and elders by name alone, especially first name, is considered lack of respect and indicative of lack of manners and culture in someone so doing.
The protagonist here, the old grandfather, is dealing with his grandson being the usual naughty boy while he is visiting him in the grandfather's old family home, built by the latter's grandfather originally and improved on by his father. The boy broke china to make perfect object to flip on the pond so it would skip a few feet before sinking, but is admonished although it is expensive. The crisis is when the boy is climbing a tree, and the grandfather this time spanks him when he is brought down. The boy is of the now and me generation and unlike his grandfather he is unable to comprehend this is love. He calls his father, the son of the old man, to come and take him away - and what is more, won't speak with the old man.
It is when the younger two are leaving - the old man was forced by circumstance to come stay alone in his old village rather than traditional living with family, due to the son being restricted by his income and shortage of space in the city - that the old man is able to convey to the boy that the punishment was for another little boy long ago - he himself had climbed the tree and fallen and broken his leg, and limps since; he did not wish this on the little grandson, and the naughty little boy couldn't have comprehended the seriousness of the danger but would understand the spanking and the correlation of the prank with punishment, hence the instinctive nature of the spanking.
Saturday, April 5, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
The Adjustment is a story from eighth and final part of the collection, which deals with old age and facing last years with family and alone.
This one is about an old couple with an only daughter who is back with her parents with her two sons, after her husband brought home a second wife (since no illegitimacy of the said second marriage is mentioned, and since the old woman brought home her daughter, one may infer it is a Muslim family); the old couple has only this one daughter and that after years of praying and pilgrimages, so the old woman is unwilling to let the only child live in less than pleasant and honourable circumstances, although the old man bickers about it - but then they have bickered for over half a century of marriage and the old man thinks it takes time to understand another person.
The old woman though dies suddenly one day, and he is now left alone, in spite of the home filled by his daughter and the two grandsons. He begins to change in a startling way, speaking or acting like the wife now gone, and claims she is visiting him and occupying his being often. The family calls in a psychiatrist, who talks and more importantly listens to him for hours, and then questions why the family is bothered if this goes on. Which is wiser of him than generally one expects western oriented psychology professionals.
The writer stops the story where the old man is found napping in the bed of the wife now gone, wearing her feminine clothes. Perhaps he intends to shock the reader. That however depends on whether one is as wise as the psychiatrist that advised the family to let him do what consoles him, since it bothers no one.
Western culture now - post industrialisation and separation of genders into master and slave categories, or even before that due to inquisition and witch hunt carried on to weed out any possible knowledge or authority in lay persons and far more so in women - has heavy emphasis on gender separation in every sphere and especially in clothing, and women wearing trousers has been disapproved to the extent such liberties are strictly forbidden in professional circles, and more along such restrictions, never mind the weather making it extremely painful for anyone to shiver on a bus stop in skirts and nylons and even for anyone looking at this.
But before this discrimination began and spread to most lands, attire was more a matter of convenience with weather and other factors taken into account chiefly, and most cultures had - and often still do, unless tainted by colonisation from Europe - dresses not all that different for men and women.
So a reader being shocked at this merely tells about how conditioned he or she is by the post inquisition culture of Europe. For the rest, it should be perfectly fine if a bereaved old man finds some comfort wearing his dead wife's clothes and napping in her bed.
Saturday, April 5, 2014.
..........................................................................
..........................................................................
