Half a Rupee is a story taken from a collection of stories (Half a Rupee: Stories) by Gulzar, the title story in fact, and offered here as an independent read. It is 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).
Half a Rupee 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.
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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.
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Gulzar to some extent and Sahir Ludhianavi to a far more committed extent were leftists - Sahir was about to be arrested for h 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.
Thursday, April 3, 2014.
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