Gagi and Superman 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 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.
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