Dusk is a story taken from a collection of stories (Half a Rupee: Stories) by Gulzar, and offered here as an independent read. It is 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.
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