Hilsa 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 four, which 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.
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.
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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.
Monday, March 31, 2014.
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